9 corporate card policy best practices

Corporate cards are highly beneficial for companies but also pose challenges that require care and the right tools to navigate. Read on to find out best practices for managing corporate card policies so your company can benefit from greater financial transparency and spend compliance.

1. Choose the right provider

Each corporate card provider has a different offering, so it’s important to identify which partner best meets your company’s needs. It’s a good idea to choose a modern provider that offers features like:

• Customisable spending limits
• Comprehensive reporting tools
• Integrations with spend management platforms

Selecting the right provider can simplify your company's entire spend management process, saving employees time and boosting productivity.

2. Create clear policies

Once you’ve chosen the right provider, it’s vital to establish comprehensive expense policies which are easy to access and understand. An effective corporate card policy should:

• Set clear limits for different spending categories
• Include spending guidelines
• Be reviewed frequently

Doing this ensures employees are well informed about how much they can spend and on what, ensuring company money is used appropriately.

3. Establish a reconciliation process

Develop a reconciliation process that boosts the accuracy of your company’s financial reporting.

You can do this by comparing financial statements with expense reports and receipts to ensure they align, helping you spot any errors or discrepancies.

4. Adopt an automated solution

The days of manually collecting receipts and creating time-consuming expense reports are over. Adopting an automated software solution for these tasks can help save time across your company while reducing the chance of human error.

Here are just some of the benefits of automation:

• Increased employee efficiency – no more manual expense reports!
• Reduced risk of human error
• Automatic expense approvals and reimbursements
• Real-time spend data
• Automatic alerts for out-of-policy transactions
• Granular real-time reporting capabilities
• Accounting software integrations

5. Empower employees

Train employees on how to use the card properly and compliantly. This involves walking them through how to make payments using the card, what they need to do from an expense perspective, and any spending limits they must adhere to.

Make sure the company expense policy is easily accessible and easy to follow.

Find out more: How to deploy a corporate card programme employees want to use

6. Encourage prompt expense submissions

For financial reporting and forecasting to be up to date and accurate, it’s important to encourage employees to submit expenses, such as business travel expenses, promptly. This speeds up the reimbursement process for employees while giving companies the spend data they need to plan and forecast effectively. 

Automated solutions like Navan remove the need for employees to submit manual expense reports altogether, saving them time and ensuring companies get all spend data in real time.

7. Incentivise employees to reduce spend

Incentivising employees to spend company money wisely is an effective way of keeping spend under control. Gamifying this process and rewarding employees who spend company money responsibly gives employees extra motivation to spend less.

Navan Rewards is an incentive programme, 100% funded by Navan, that rewards employees with personal travel credits whenever they save their company money on hotel bookings. Companies that adopt this programme have seen 15% savings on travel.

8. Mandate the use of corporate cards

By mandating employees to use your company’s chosen corporate card provider, you can ensure all spend is going through one designated platform. Doing this gives finance teams greater visibility and control of company spend, and improves overall policy compliance. Employees are also less likely to use company money for personal purchases.

9. Keep the policy up to date

Regularly review and update your corporate card policy to ensure it’s effective and appropriate. This ensures employee spend is reflective of economic trends and the business environment.

Keeping corporate cards policies up to date is crucial for a company’s financial health.

By implementing these expert strategies, organisations can optimise spend management processes, mitigate risks, and make employees happier.

Are you ready to implement an all-in-one travel and expense solution and streamline your company spend? Book a demo today.