Introduction

The last thing you want to worry about when you have a fast-growing business is slow and manual payment processes setting you back. Without proper strategies and tools in place, however, you can find yourself wasting a lot of time doing things like transferring cash and recording all day-to-day transactions. Here’s how you can upgrade your processes: use virtual cards. Managing all expenses, from supplier purchases to travel bookings, is faster, easier, and safer when you have business virtual cards.

Growing popularity of virtual cards in the business world

In recent years, virtual card usage has been climbing in popularity. Also, With many businesses adopting e-commerce strategies and accepting online payments, it’s no surprise that the convenience of using virtual cards is favor by many. Even among businesses, using virtual cards as a way to make and manage business expenses is becoming more popular. However, For enterprises with a large number of employees, managing business spending—especially day-to-day employee and operational expenses—can get complicat really fast. Also, It’s the ability to generate unlimited virtual cards, each given their specific usage, that makes them appealing and ideal for managing expenses. Each card can have its own purpose, meaning that every transaction made on that particular card will only for one vendor, project, or business trip. Virtual cards are not just easy to use. They also provide an added layer of security. Without a physical plastic form, there’s less risk of losing or misplacing your card. Even on the off chance that a cybercriminal gets their hands on your card data, it’s easy to go into your card management platform to freeze and block your card. Generating a new one takes no time at all, too. It’s the ideal solution for business expense management.

7 best ways business virtual cards can be used for enterprises

Streamlining Expense Management

Larger businesses will naturally have more expenses to make, meaning that expense management will be more complex and time-consuming, especially without the appropriate tools. Using business virtual cards for your expenses, however, will simplify your expense management and save you a lot of time. There are no bounds on what types of expenses you can make using virtual cards. From buying office equipment to one-time project expenses, virtual cards can be used for all kinds of business purchases. Issue as many virtual cards as you need and use each card for a specific use. Budgeting and reviewing your expenses will be much easier.

Optimizing Employee Spending

There are many ways that you can manage employee expenses, starting from relying on out-of-pocket expenses and reimbursements to letting employees use the director’s card for all their purchases. The problem is that the bigger your business gets, the less sustainable some of these methods become. Virtual cards don’t have that problem. Instead of having to rely on your finance team to review reimbursement claims, which can be time-consuming, employees can easily make expenses while you still have full control over them. Any employee who needs a card can given one. Each card you issue can controlled from a card management platform, allowing you to set spending limits.

Streamlining Accounts Payable

Business virtual card providers will offer you a card management platform that you can use to generate your cards, control your card expenses, and record transactions. Many providers are also able to integrate with your accounting software of choice, meaning that the transactions automatically recorded on your card management system can synced with your accounting software. With settlements happening almost immediately and your ledger kept up to date automatically, being on top of your accounts payable takes no time at all. Your finance team won’t have to worry about tedious manual data entry, allowing them to avoid human-made accounting errors.

Managing Subscription Services

Whether they are accounting tools, communication platforms, design software, or any other services on a subscription basis, losing access to your subscription services would greatly disrupt your business. If by some unfortunate turn of events you have to freeze or block the card you use to pay all your subscriptions, you’ll have a difficult time getting everything running again. You won’t have to worry about running into this problem with virtual cards. Most providers will allow you to generate an unlimited number of virtual cards; making it easy to assign one card to every subscription. Tracking which services have been paid will also be much simpler to do!

Enhancing Travel and Expense Management

Business virtual cards are versatile. While they are primarily used with the purpose of online transactions in mind, you can add your virtual cards to digital wallets; and use them in the same way you would use physical cards in stores. This makes them the perfect tool for enhanced travel and expense management. Use your virtual cards to make online travel bookings for transport and accommodation easily. At the same time, your cards can also be used to make other in-person purchases during business trips via digital wallets. Create a virtual card for each traveller on every individual trip to track how much is being spent per trip per person.

Securing Online and International Transactions

Making payments online and across borders is easier than ever. As online transactions grow more popular, it’s essential to keep up with the times; and familiarize yourself with payment methods that make online purchases for your business simple. With virtual cards, as soon as a card is generated, you can activate and use it immediately. All you’ll need to do after is enter your card data to process transactions. You can also generate single-use cards when needed, meaning that your card information will be obsolete after each use. This way, merchants can’t keep your card data, keeping your funds safe from fraud attempts.

Facilitating B2B and Supplier Payments

Many vendors nowadays will have card payment options for you to clear your invoices. Rather than relying on cheques or bank transfers, paying suppliers with business virtual cards can be much faster and easier. All you’ll have to do is enter your card information in your supplier’s payment portal; and your transaction will be processed immediately. For suppliers that you purchase multiple times from or pay on a recurring basis, you can create multi-use virtual cards; and have a spend limit that refreshes each month. With direct debit features, you can pay suppliers automatically and not worry about any late payments.

Conclusion