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Keeping a business growing could require employee spending. Employees may travel for meetings, to entertain customers, or to purchase new tools and equipment.
Instead of relying on employees to make business purchases on their own and submit expense reports for reimbursement, a corporate card program could help simplify their roles and help streamline operations.
A corporate card program is a structured system that businesses could use to manage employee business expenses with company credit cards. Employees could use these company credit cards to make work-related purchases, and the business pays the bills.
Corporate credit card programs may be used to help organizations track employee spending, enforce spending policies, and optimize expense workflows. These programs could also play a key role in helping to manage corporate expenses, which could affect operational efficiency, financial control, and scalability.
How Corporate Card Programs Can Help Businesses
Corporate credit cards could help make it easier for businesses to maintain accurate financial records, simplify reporting, and enforce spending policies across their teams.
How Corporate Credit Cards Work
After a company is approved for a corporate card program, it may distribute business credit cards to its employees. The employees could use those cards for work-related expenses rather than using their personal cards and waiting for reimbursement.
A card program may be structured to enforce spending limits and other policies to help control and predict spending. With real-time visibility of card usage, companies might use corporate card programs to help prevent corporate card abuse and monitor cash flow. Over time, companies could use the spending data to help develop spending policies and procedures.
Potential Benefits of Separating Expenses
Providing employees with company credit cards could help make it simpler to separate business expenses, including:
- Real-time tracking: Rather than waiting for employees to submit expense reports, company finance managers could monitor cash flow in real time with visibility of company card transactions.
- Predictable accounting: With card limits and spending policies in place, companies might be able to better forecast spending than when employee expense reports are submitted at different times.
4 Signs Your Company May Be Ready for a Corporate Card Program
1. Your company is experiencing high demand for business spending.
As companies scale, they might face increased transaction volumes, more complex expense categories, and the need for faster approvals. Corporate credit cards could help support business growth and spending demand by helping employees to complete business-related purchases.
At the same time, corporate cards could help streamline business expense management and help finance leaders maintain control during rapid expansion.
2. Your company is managing inconsistent operational costs.
When employees make business purchases on their own dime and submit expense reports later, it may be challenging for company finance teams to track and predict future expenses. Corporate card programs could help facilitate expense management, allowing organizations to potentially maintain consistent operational costs.
Corporate card programs may include centralized expense tracking, automated approvals, and policy enforcement, all of which might help reduce variability in budgets and help improve spending forecasts. For example, card transaction data could be integrated into your company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, potentially reducing administrative tasks associated with expenses.
The ability to accurately predict expenses can be essential for financial planning, scalability, and investor confidence — and a corporate card program could help make that possible with real-time visibility and alignment with spending policies.
3. Your business lacks spending controls and reporting.
If employees are accustomed to making untracked business purchases, your company's bottom line may be impacted. A corporate card program could help with expense management by establishing program rules and policies that can be automated.
When setting up a corporate card program, your business may set transaction limits, restrict certain merchant categories, and require approvals for specific types of purchases. Your finance team could also monitor real-time card activity to help enforce compliance. Corporate card programs may provide reporting tools that offer visibility into trends, enable faster reconciliation, and support strategic decision-making with data-driven insights.
4. Your staff is managing too many administrative tasks.
If you don’t have a corporate credit card program, your finance team may be spending more time than necessary reviewing expense reports and cutting reimbursement checks. Implementing a corporate card program could help simplify the work of the finance team by reducing or eliminating the need for reimbursements.
In addition, a corporate card program could help relieve employees from the paperwork involved in submitting expense reports. This could allow them to focus on their assigned duties without having to use their own funds for work expenses and wait for reimbursement.
Selecting Your Corporate Credit Card
The right corporate card program for your company can depend on your company’s size, spending habits, and financial goals. To help choose a corporate card, you may want to consider the following features:
- Rewards: Corporate card programs may include the potential for rewards or cash back. Some may include credits for business services such as software subscriptions or business travel.
- Reporting tools: A card program may offer real-time visibility into company spending, as well as the ability to create customized reports so that it’s easier to access the data you need when needed.
- Employee controls: Consider the types of controls you could use to manage employee spending. Do you want to be able to set customized spending limits for different employees? Are you looking to flag transactions in real-time if they violate a company policy?
How to Help Manage Employee Credit Cards
Deciding to implement a corporate card program could be an important step for expense management and operational efficiency. A corporate card program could help manage your company's finances effectively.
Consider the American Express® Corporate Card Program
With the American Express® Corporate Card Program, you can customize a program that is right for your business from a selection of powerful solutions, with the backing of American Express. Choose only what you need from our selection of Cards and digital tools to help you operate efficiently. Select from the Membership Rewards® program1 and or the CashBack® Program to get rewarded in a way that works for your business. Add expense management and AP automation solutions that work with each other and your existing programs. Receive support from an onboarding team dedicated to helping you get started.
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The material made available for you on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax or financial advice. If you have questions, please consult your own professional legal, tax and financial advisors.
Additional Disclosures
1 Enrollment in the Corporate Membership Rewards program is required. Only the American Express® Corporate Green Card, American Express® Corporate Gold Card, and American Express Corporate Platinum Card® are eligible to enroll in the Corporate Membership Rewards program. The Program Administrator is charged a $90 annual enrollment fee for each enrolled Corporate Green Card. A program fee is not applied for the Corporate Gold Card and Corporate Platinum Card®. Get one Corporate Membership Rewards point for every dollar of eligible purchases charged on enrolled American Express® Corporate Cards. Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents. If the Corporate Card Member is transferring from an existing Membership Rewards program to the Corporate Membership Rewards program, the Card Member will have 30 days to use any existing Membership Rewards points before they are forfeited.
The redemption value of Corporate Membership Rewards points varies according to how you choose to use them.
For the full terms and conditions for the Corporate Membership Rewards® program please visit americanexpress.com/corporatemrterms for more information. Participating Corporate Membership Rewards partners, available rewards, and point levels are subject to change without notice.
