Advancement in payment technologies has made it easier for businesses to conduct their day-to-day financial operations. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, an increasing number of companies are now offering their employees corporate credit cards for simpler expense tracking and savings from suppliers.
A recent survey by Strategic Treasurer, the “2017 B2B Payments & Working Capital Management Survey”, revealed an increasing acceptance of corporate employee expense cards among companies these days.
Here are two interesting findings based on responses from 355 global finance executives:
- More than 1 in 4 companies are planning to spend more or significantly more on their card programs in the next year.
- More than one-fourth of companies are planning to spend in excess of $250,000 on payment technology.
Courtesy: strategictreasurer.com
The survey findings are hardly surprising considering how cumbersome employee expenses tracking has become for many companies these days.
So, what really motivates companies to drop the conventional methods and switch to modern employee expense management tools?
Benefits of Corporate Employee Expense Cards
Tech-driven corporate employee expense cards offer benefits too compelling for small businesses to ignore. Plus, they add great value to firms and create a more positive work culture.
Employee Satisfaction
Traditionally, it was very common among companies to reimburse their employees for any work-related expenses. However, most people would find it hard to wait until companies reimburse the expenses. These days, many companies are adopting a corporate credit card program to do away with the stress and inconveniences their employees faced in the past.
BlackLine Inc., a leading provider of cloud software, started offering corporate credit cards to employees around twelve years ago. After all, happy employees are empowered employees, and they are key to boosting a company’s overall productivity.
Easier Expenses Tracking
Streamlining employee expenses reports can be complicated and daunting. According to Certify, companies now spend a whopping 10-12% of their annual revenue on travel and entertainment. Therefore, with inaccurate expense tracking, companies may lose perspective of their day-to-day expenses on employees.
Companies are now embracing corporate employee expense cards to ward off the veritable complications associated with employee expenses tracking. With corporate credit cards, employees are limited to spend on pre-approved expenses that are easy to track in real-time.
This saves many companies a huge amount of time, allowing them to focus on their core business operations.
Savings from Suppliers
Apart from helping boost staff morale and streamline expense management, corporate employee expense cards actually help businesses increase their bottom line.
First off, with this new payment technology, companies get competitive pricing from vendors that require credit card payments. According to Patrick McCullough, Finance Chief of Just Energy Group Inc, their company took advantage of the competitive pricing from digital vendors such as Amazon Prime and Uber Eats.
Similarly, there’s another benefit of using corporate credit cards – discounts from suppliers. Suppliers often offer discounts to companies that pay promptly. With more and more companies setting up automatic and recurring credit card payments, suppliers no longer need to wait 30 to 60 days to get paid.
Final Thoughts
To create real solutions for the very real problems businesses face in expense management, technology must be paired with in-depth human insights.
Tech-driven expense solutions are becoming increasingly popular among corporate firms thanks to the sheer convenience, flexibility and business value they offer. We can expect small and medium businesses to reap the same benefits as they adopt these technologies. At Bento, we want to help them do just that.
