Corporate cards can make corporate expense reporting easy by allowing employees to pay for travel expenses whenever they want. Without the proper operations, processing corporate credit transactions requires the finance department to spend hours or more if they work with spreadsheets or paper-based processes.
This article presents you with the benefits of adopting corporate credit cards for travel expenses and how it would simplify the reimbursement process.
Key Takeaways
- Corporate credit cards simplify expense reporting by automating transaction capture and reducing manual data entry, saving finance teams hours of processing time.
- Real-time data feeds from corporate cards enable proactive spend controls, instant fraud detection, and immediate visibility into employee spending patterns.
- Without proper controls, corporate cards can lead to unauthorized spending, accounting errors, and fraud risks that make businesses liable for all card balances.
- Automated expense management systems with corporate card integration reduce processing time by up to 55% while improving compliance and eliminating reimbursement delays.
- Strategic corporate card programs require clear expense policies, mandatory receipt submission, and automated approval workflows to maximize benefits and minimize risks.
Corporate Credit Card
Corporate credit cards help businesses manage their corporate expenses and budgets easily. Choosing a corporate credit card offers several benefits, including spend controls, approval workflows, real-time transaction feeds, and spend visibility.
Spend controls enable you to enforce expense policy within the system, and automated policy checks restrict non-compliant expenses.
Real-time Data Feeds
Real-time corporate card feeds make the expense reporting process easier to close the books.
The following are some of the key benefits of corporate card feeds:
- Effortless expense tracking and cash flow management
- Minimize overspending, non-compliance, and fraud-related activities
- Streamlines the expense reporting process
- Credit card reconciliations are easier
- Quick reimbursements and tax management with detailed audit trails
- Submit expenses faster with the ease of transaction syncing
Common signs your corporate cards make expense management harder:
- You are not sure of how expenses are being mapped to specific budgets and lack visibility over employee spending
- Late expense submissions and the increase in non-compliance issues
- Inaccurate financial reporting process
- Overspending and fraud occur frequently
When you leverage corporate cards backed by integrated expense software, managers can control company spending with clear visibility in real time.
The risks of corporate credit cards
Corporate card usage can lead to unapproved spending and accounting errors without proper controls.
Paying for Unauthorized Transactions
Your business is liable for paying corporate credit card balances; therefore, controls must be in place to prevent unauthorized transactions. Missed receipts and approval delays are some issues that increase the risk of corporate card fraud. Companies with poor controls are prone to fraudulent transactions.
Mapping Expenses Incorrectly
When credit card transactions aren’t posted accurately, the financial team cannot assess budget performance or profitability. Poorly designed workflows or staff miscommunication are the problems. The key reasons could be Manual expense coding and planned budget vs. actual spending across any accounting department.
How does a corporate credit card streamline expense management?
Corporate credit card expense management can be tedious and time-consuming; however, automation can help improve the process while providing financial controls over spending and efficiency.
The following are some of the ways to simplify your expense reporting process:
Expense policy
Define the workflow of your business to issue cards and monitor spending. Enforce policies through the corporate credit card.
Mandate receipts
Employees should submit receipts for expenses incurred on every business trip.
Match transactions with receipts
SutiExpense reads receipts and matches the data with credit card transactions.
Approvals
Getting approvals faster for expenses that follow expense policies.
Accounting entries
Card transactions can be synced to the external application or ERP system.
Payments
Payments will be made after approving all corporate card transactions.
Recordkeeping
All appropriate receipts are stored and documented for further reference.
Analysis
Analyzing expenses can identify cost-saving areas so you can enforce controls and keep spending within your budget.
Reconciliation
The accounts payable team reconciles corporate card transactions and reviews expenses for quality assurance to support month-end closure.
Critical features of an expense management tool
Choose an expense solution that embraces automation and speeds up processing times. The solution should automate controls over credit limits and enable users to upload receipts and post expenses easily.
Best practices for corporate card expense management
The following are some of the best practices for managing expense reporting process through corporate cards:
A corporate card expense management system can help place controls that eliminate the reimbursement process, which requires more documentation. You can streamline the finance operations while improving compliance and expense reporting fraud.
Spend policy
Create an expense policy that works for your organization; your employees should access the policy quickly. You can define credit limits based on the policy and the spending type allowed on each card. Make sure your employees submit receipts on time for the expenses they incur. With SutiExpense, businesses can control spending before it happens with pre-approved daily and monthly limits that eliminate out-of-policy spending.
Monitor budgets
Managers are required to proactively monitor budgets to avoid employees being spent over the budget. These practices help your business prevent overspending and alert managers to prevent fraudulent transactions. A corporate card can help automate the entire process by preventing fraud from happening.
Choose a solution that helps you find real-time transactions from any employee or department on any device; no need to wait for the credit card statements at the end of every month.
Differentiate personal and corporate card expenses
Most of the time, employees use corporate cards for their expenses. Your employees need to tell clearly what is acceptable and what is not. When using the corporate card for personal expenses, ensure your expense report solution identifies them.
Double-check expense claims
Receipts are the best proof to validate expenses. You will gain a better idea of whether your employees are spending right. The solution eliminates potential fraud by mandating receipts so the expenses will be more legible to process reimbursements.
Choose the best corporate card expense management software
Transform your expense management strategy today by leveraging corporate credit cards with integrated automation.
The combination of real-time spend controls, automated policy enforcement, and seamless reconciliation not only reduces processing costs but also eliminates fraud risks while improving employee satisfaction through faster reimbursements
Your next steps:
- Evaluate your current expense management process to identify pain points
- Define clear spending policies and approval workflows
- Select an automated expense management solution with robust corporate card integration
- Train your team on new processes and monitor compliance regularly
Ready to streamline your corporate expense management? Start your free trial of SutiExpense and discover how automation can transform your finance operations while providing the visibility and control your business needs.
FAQs
Q: How do corporate credit cards help prevent expense fraud?
Corporate credit cards create an automatic audit trail by recording all transactions in real-time, making it nearly impossible for employees to submit fake receipts or falsify expenses. The system can instantly match transactions with submitted receipts, flagging any discrepancies for review.
Q: What are the main risks of using corporate cards without proper controls?
The primary risks of using corporate cards include unauthorized spending, mapping expenses incorrectly to budgets, fraud due to missed receipts or approval delays, and poor financial reporting that prevents accurate budget performance assessment. Companies remain liable for all corporate card balances.
Q: How does corporate card integration streamline the expense reporting process?
Integration automates the entire workflow from purchase to accounting by syncing transactions directly into expense management systems, eliminating manual data entry, speeding up approvals for policy-compliant expenses, and enabling automatic reconciliation with ERP systems.
Q: What features should I look for in corporate card expense management software?
Look for real-time transaction feeds, automated policy compliance checks, receipt matching capabilities, fraud detection using AI/ML, customizable approval workflows, integration with accounting systems, and mobile accessibility for on-the-go expense management.
Q: How can businesses prevent employees from using corporate cards for personal expense?
Implement clear spend policies with defined credit limits, use automated monitoring systems that flag non-business expenses, require mandatory receipt submission with detailed explanations, and establish regular auditing processes to review all transactions.
