Various business payment solutions
In 2020, the classic corporate credit card is no longer your only choice!
Still using any of these traditional payment solutions for company expenses?
- Cash
- Payment by invoice (bank transfer)
- Corporate purchasing card
- Employee personal credit card
- Check
- Business credit card
Ever considered any of these more modern payment solutions?
- Online payment services (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, etc.)
- Corporate card, company accounts or lodge card
- (Single-use) virtual credit cards
- Prepaid cards
- Mobile payments
With so many business payment options, it can be tricky working out the pros and cons of each. This handy guide will help you decide which of these could be right for your business.
What are the disadvantages of traditional payment solutions?
Let’s examine the traditional business payment solutions that continue to be widely used.
Corporate purchasing card: allows authorized employees to pay for orders without needing a cash advance.
These card payments generally relate to non-strategic, low-amount purchases that often generate a high number of invoices (office supplies, small IT equipment, consumables, etc.).
However, using a purchasing card can result in significant security gaps for your transactions as employees often share company card numbers by email or jot the card code on a sticky note and leave this lying around on a desk.
Cash payments: involve the risk of loss and fraud – without legal recourse.
It‘s impossible to verify expenses paid in cash and business travelers are solely responsible for recording and claiming expenses which can make manually submitting every expense report a challenge.
Employee personal credit card: managing expense reports can be a real headache, especially if as much as one report is lost.
Additionally, this solution requires employees to advance expenses from their own personal bank account which isn’t ideal for lengthy business trips abroad or expensive countries.
What are the advantages of modern payment solutions?
Modern payment solutions, on the other hand, boast numerous advantages because of how they’re easily integrated into your company’s information systems:
- Simplified expense monitoring and accounting reconciliation
- Secured transactions
- Fraud protection
- Automated expense report management process
They not only save you time but also money by streamlining expense management workload and ensuring greater accuracy.
Which business payment solution is right for you?
Deciding on whether to choose a corporate card, virtual card, lodge card depends on three key factors:
- Type of expense incurred
- Person in charge of spending
- Expense frequency.
Making routine employee expenses? Choose the virtual card or the corporate card
Take your decision based on frequency:
- Virtual card: ideal for SMEs with employees only making a few business trips.- Non-frequent travelers
- Corporate card: designed for large companies with a big volume of business travel expenses. This card includes travel insurance, simplifies transaction. – Frequent travelers
Making business travel bookings? Choose the company account
A company account (or lodge card) is primarily used for ticketing purchases, such as flight or train reservations. The system is connected to a network of travel agencies, or to an online booking tool (Self Booking Tool, or SBT).
Purchases are therefore centralized: place orders with various travel service providers using the same company account and receive a single billing statement from a single party.
Or, why not consider a mix of payment solutions?
There are different advantages to each corporate business card, so why restrict yourself to one single payment method? Combining several cards gives you the flexibility to adapt to different circumstances and to the various countries where you incur expenses.
For example, a company account is the answer for making travel agency reservations while, with a corporate credit card, those on corporate travel can pay for purchases on the spot anywhere in the world. The acceptance network coverage, such as that of Mastercard, is global and travel accident insurance is included. The AirPlus corporate card uses the Mastercard network and conveniently defers debit until after the expense report has been reimbursed.
All the advantages you need
Make sure you take advantage of the right business payment solution or solutions for your business. We can help you weigh up exactly what would benefit you the most.
And now, it’s your turn: what is your preferred payment solution mix?
Download our handy e-book: ‘Get A Grip On Your Travel Expenses’
