Strategic Expense Management: Leveraging Corporate Credit Cards for Spend Controls

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 and more if they work with spreadsheets or paper-based processes.

This article presents you with the benefits of adapting corporate credit cards for travel expenses and how it would simplify the reimbursement process.

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-compliance 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 expense reporting process
• Credit card reconciliations are easier
• Quick reimbursements and tax management with detailed audit trails
• Submit expenses faster with the ease of transactions 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 fraudulence occurrence 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 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 times, 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

SutiExpense corporate card and expense report solution help businesses take control of their finances and stay on top of accounting activities. Spend controls, receipt management, and external integrations help companies enforce corporate credit card policies and streamline reconciliation.

• Go with the solution that has the following features:
• An intuitive solution that allows users to navigate with ease
• Record and capture expenses as they happen
• Integration with corporate cards for easy expense management
• Fully scalable and customizable solution that grows as your company grows
• Fraud detection with AI & ML capabilities
• Quick approvals and reimbursements
• Customize workflows and spending policies
• Generate real-time reports that give you clear insight into the data
• Integrations with ERPs and accounting systems
• An integrated travel management system could be a plus

SutiExpense AI & ML capabilities help businesses spend less and stay on top of accounting activities. Your finance team leverages thoughtful controls, receipt management, and accounting integrations that streamline spending policy enforcement and corporate card reconciliation processes.