What is a reloadable Visa card?
What is a reloadable Visa card? Reloadable Visa cards are Visas that can be reloaded with funds when their balances grow low. They can be prepaid cards that are not attached to bank accounts or credit lines, or they can be reloadable debit cards that are linked to debit accounts.
Visa is the largest credit card processor in the world. In the U.S. alone, there are an estimated 311 million Visa credit cards. More than 46 million merchants worldwide accept Visa, meaning that reloadable Visa cards can be used nearly anywhere in the world.
Businesses are able to purchase reloadable cards and decide how much money to fund them with. For prepaid cards, the purchase price establishes the initial balances on the cards. When employees use the cards, the purchases are subtracted from the balances on the cards.
Reloadable debit cards are linked to a deposit account. The business owner can allocate funds from the account to serve as a total limit on the reloadable card. Some reloadable Visa debit cards also allow business owners to set spending limits by the day or week on individual cards and to refill them when they have low balances.
Why do people use reloadable Visa cards?
Both consumers and businesses use Visa prepaid reloadable cards. Consumers might use them for multiple reasons. The cards may be given as gifts to others. People may also use reloadable cards to receive direct deposits, pay bills, and shop. Reloadable cards can provide people with a convenient way to make purchases in stores and online.
Businesses also use reloadable business Visas as a convenient and flexible payment method. Businesses might use the cards to help them to stay within their budgets and to control the spending that occurs within their companies. They might also use reloadable business Visas to keep their business and personal expenses separated.
How secure are reloadable Visa cards?
Reloadable Visa cards offer multiple security features that help to protect people from the risk of fraud. According to Visa you have protection from cards that are misplaced or stolen. You also are protected from unauthorized purchases. To read more about that, you can visit Visa’s reloadable prepaid cards page.
In addition to these security features, Visa also offers protections of its own. There are a number of controls that are available on business reloadable Visas, including payment controls that allow you to track spending and better manage your money.
What are the different things a refillable Visa card can be referred to as?
A reloadable card from Visa may be referred to in a number of different ways, including the following:
- Reloadable prepaid cards
- Prepaid debit cards
- Prepaid credit cards
- Reloadable Visa credit cards
- Reloadable Visa debit cards
- Refillable cards
Regardless of the specific term that is used, these terms refer to the same type of card. All of these cards refer to cards that are not credit cards and that do not have revolving lines of credit attached to them. People can choose how much money to make available on these cards and can add more money later if they choose to do so.
How can a reloadable Visa card help your expense management?
Using a reloadable Visa debit card can help businesses to improve their expense management systems. These systems include all of the expense management tools that your business has in place to track and control your business expenses.
Business reloadable Visas offer controls that can improve your expense management. You can set restrictions on each of the cards that you give to your employees that limit where each card can be used, how much an employee can spend with the card, when the cards will work, and the purchase categories that are allowed. The transactions can be viewed at any time as they occur from your business’s online dashboard.
Using a reloadable Visa card can help reduce your risk of business fraud
A key benefit of using reloadable debit cards that are Visas in your company is that doing so can help to reduce your risk of business fraud. You can replace outdated payments systems with the cards that have a heightened risk of internal and external thefts such as petty cash, reimbursements, and checks.
The controls on the cards can help you to enforce your expense policy. Using cards instead of alternative payment methods can also help to limit your employees’ ability to access your accounts and your money. The cards cannot be used to withdraw money from your account, and the controls allow you to prevent unauthorized purchases.
If an employee attempts to purchase something that you have restricted, it will be declined at the point of sale. You will see that the attempt was made so that you can deal with it as you see fit.
What are the telltale signs of business fraud?
Fraud is a pervasive problem, impacting many businesses. According to the AFP Payments Survey, 78 percent of businesses that were surveyed were the victims of some form of payments fraud in the year preceding the survey. Of the types of fraud that happened, 74 percent involved check fraud, 48 percent involved wire fraud, and 30 percent involved corporate credit card fraud.
Identifying the telltale signs that fraud might be occurring is important. If you see these signs, you should take action to prevent your business from becoming the victim of business fraud:
- Employee who is suddenly living beyond his or her means
- Employee who refuses to let others check his or her work
- Worker who has unchecked control over your accounts
- Employee who is undergoing severe hardships
- Staff resistance to tighter expense controls
- Relationships between certain employees and vendors that are overly close
If you see these telltale signs, you should audit all of your accounts and your employees’ work. You should also never give too much control to a single employee. Make sure to train everyone about your expense policy, your expectations, and how to identify and report suspected fraud within the company.
What are the built-in spending controls that reloadable Visa cards have?
Reloadable Visa cards have a number of built-in spending controls. Business owners are able to set individual spending limits on each of the cards as well as determine the total amounts to make available on the cards. For example, an employee who drives for a business might be given a card that has a total of $500 loaded onto it but have a daily spending limit for gasoline purchases of $50.
Business owners can also restrict when the cards will work and can choose to turn the cards off when their employees are not working and back on again when they return to work the next day. They can also restrict purchases by categories and limit the spending to specific merchants. Finally, the cards can be turned off or on at any time remotely from a smartphone, computer, or tablet.
How reloadable Visa cards can be used for payroll
Reloadable prepaid Visa cards best reloadable Visa cards can also be used for payroll. Employers can give their employees their own reloadable cards with their individual names on them. When it is time to complete payroll, the payroll and accounting staff can figure out the deductions and deposit the net income of each employee onto his or her reloadable card.
The money for payroll can be transferred electronically from the business’s account to each individual card. The accounts payable staff can then remit money to the government for FICA, Medicare, and income tax withholdings for each employee.
How government agencies can spend more efficiently and effectively
The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2009 was passed to help government agencies to reduce improper payments and to mitigate the risk of contractor fraud. Since the passage of the act, improper payments have soared by 33 percent to $136.7 billion.
Contractor risk management programs can be helped when government agencies adopt payment systems that are more efficient and effective. This can help them to identify waste, fraud, abuse, and other problems so that contractor risk is reduced.
How reloadable Visa cards can benefit companies of all sizes
Reloadable prepaid Visa debit cards can benefit businesses regardless of their sizes or industries. The cards provide an effective way to manage expenses for businesses of all sizes. Small companies can order a few cards to distribute to their employees and set individual spending limits and other restrictions on each of the cards.
Large companies can generate ghost cards and assign individual numbers to different departments. Charges that the departmental employees make with the ghost numbers will be charged back to their departments. This can help large companies to track spending at the departmental level.
The cards can be integrated with a business’s accounting software so that transaction data is imported automatically into the correct expense categories. Employees can be trained to photograph receipts at the time of purchase so that the receipts will be transmitted together with the transaction data.
How card processing by businesses is increasing
More businesses than ever are accepting and using debit and credit cards. According to a survey from Intuit, 83 percent of small businesses that began accepting debit and credit cards realized an increase in sales with 52 percent experiencing an increase of at least $1,000 per month.
In addition to broadening the customer base, businesses can also benefit by using reloadable cards within their own companies. The benefits offered with the expense control features can help to reduce losses and to increase profits. Businesses should keep up with the times and reap the benefits of the new technology that is available with reloadable cards for businesses.
What are some of the best practices for using reloadable cards?
If your business decides to try reloadable cards, you should not just simply add them to your existing payment systems. Instead, you should research how to implement them and begin to replace antiquated payment systems within your company.
You should start by writing a clear policy for how each employee can use the reloadable Visa card that he or she will be given. A regular reloadable Visa card training for your employees should also be conducted. Employees are less likely to make mistakes when they understand your expectations about how they should use their cards and the controls that are placed on the cards.
How to try out reloadable Visa cards for your business
Bento for Business Visa debit cards are reloadable cards that offer extensive expense management and control features. Business owners are able to set restrictions on each card to control what they can be used to purchase, where they can be used, how much can be spent, and when the cards will work. Business owners can turn individual cards on or off at any time by tapping a button on their smartphone screens.
Bento has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and thousands of satisfied customers because of the outstanding features of the cards. Business owners can also use the card API so that developers can integrate it with the companies’ existing software.
This allows businesses to generate reloadable Visa cards online or within their applications that will be ready within minutes. There is a free 60-day trial so that businesses can try reloadable cards to see how they work. To learn more, contact a customer service representative by calling 866.220.8455.
