American Express® Corporate Purchasing Solutions

A Corporate Purchasing Card complements your company’s Corporate Card programme by allowing you to consolidate regular payments to vendors within a single account, set limits on how and with whom your employees can spend, and gain insight into your spending so you can negotiate rates with preferred merchants.

Both “pcard” and “p-card” are abbreviations of “Purchasing Card,” which is itself a slight abbreviation of “Corporate Purchasing Card.” You may hear these terms used interchangeably by professionals, but they all mean the same thing.

When you sign up for an American Express Corporate Purchasing Card, you can choose to issue physical Cards or virtual Cards (in the form of Virtual Account Numbers) to your employees. Physical Cards are designed for staff who work away from the office and ideal for all business-related expenses, and virtual Cards are helpful to lodge with a preferred supplier or in a procurement platform, or for central use by a department within a company that does not want to issue physical Cards to multiple employees. From the American Express @ Work digital platform, you can set and enforce limits on which companies your employees can spend with, as well as how much they can spend.

While Purchasing Cards and Credit Cards can be used similarly, there are a few key differences in a Purchasing Card vs a Credit Card. Generally, Charge Cards are paid in full each month, while Credit Cards can have a revolving balance with interest being charged.

An American Express Corporate Purchasing Card acts as a Charge Card, but with several additional advantages. You can have a virtual account option available for use with online suppliers. Rather than assigning each Card to a single person, you can assign your Corporate Purchasing Card to a department within your company for use by multiple team members. You can also issue an Account in a supplier’s name for use with a key supplier who has recurring invoicing requirements for ease of reconciliation.