Tracking Corporate Expenses made easy
Corporate expenses range from individual employee benefits to infrastructural allocation to individual units. Everyone has heard the terms reimbursement, employee benefits claims, and other expenses albeit through the prism depicting a myriad of reactions — most of them unsavory to put it mildly. While the corporate executives find the long process of filing expense reports and submitting the invoices tiresome and at times bordering on lack of trust, the accounts find themselves in an unenviable position of questioning, auditing, and reconciling them with the Company Budget. And when auditors do come out with systems to reduce frauds, Department heads are regularly at loggerheads with accounts over the paperwork.
The sum total is interdepartmental bad blood and a constant state of tug of war that can adversely affect both the operations and the accounts.
Prepaid Cards for Corporate expenses are a boon to both employers and employees.
Prepaid cards are one of the best tools to manage corporate expenses. It is no secret that as the company grows so do the expenses, especially the travel and other petty expenses which form a substantial percentage of the overall budget. The bottleneck in tracking is that the disbursement is through individual employees whose numbers might run in hundreds and at times in thousands. This is where maintaining a balance between fraudulent or mistaken charges versus operationally profitable charges becomes a challenge.
The prepaid card enables control over the employee spending through a limit set over time and the amount. This also reduces the massive burden of claims or reimbursements. With reduced dependency on actual cash transactions, policy adherence and automated tracking enable the auditors to access a lot of information without depending on the employees for details saving both time and faceoffs.
Pointers to get the most of Prepaid Cards to manage corporate expenses.
Ideally, the Prepaid cards could be a major relief, but in practice, it is possible only if certain standards are maintained in the implementation and usage of this facility. Selecting a Vendor who would equip and facilitate these services, is crucial to the successful issuance of the Prepaid cards to the employees or other stakeholders of the company.
The prepaid card program must be customized as much as their budget would allow. It should strictly adhere to the company policy with separate options for both open and closed-loop programs. The cards should be configured according to the needs, specific to the company for example some might need it to be used in ATMs while others might want it to work within just the cafeteria and sister concerns of the company. Some could select merchants or categories for a certain department or particular grades. E.g., sales teams should have options to use it on online travel sites or enable multiple currencies for certain grades. Wibmo’s Prepaid solution meets all these requirements and more. Covering the whole range of corporate expenses from payroll to daily expenses and travel expenses they are easy to use and have reloading wallets backed with 24-hour customer support.
With every advancement comes its own set of risks and unethical practices. The good news is that the market has vendors who can provide services and fortify them against fraud. Two-factor authentication is always recommended for such cards with EMV chips for added security. Market Proven tools like TRIDENT-FRM can be used to disable fraudulent attempts. Additional security and control can be attained through vendors who provide Host Complete back-office card operations.
In short, the prepaid cards can empower the companies to control the corporate expenses thereby bring them down without much sweating whilst the employees, now more aware of the limits, need not spend their productive hours filling out expense reports and more importantly feel more trusted with their dignity intact.
Author:
Krishnan KN, Advisor in Wibmo’s Agile PMO
Wibmo A PayU/Naspers FinTech Company