Get a grip on the 3 biggest risks of business credit cards

Every organisation has expenses. Large payments often go through the finance department and follow set rules. Smaller expenses, such as expense claims, are often made without control from the finance department. Some managers solve this by letting employees pay with credit cards. Others find this risky.

In this article, we discuss the three most frequently mentioned risks of business credit cards and how to get a grip on them.

The 3 biggest risks of business credit cards

With a business credit card, employees can easily make payments worldwide without advancing themselves. Combined with claims software, this saves a lot of time on the claims process.

To see if credit cards make payments and declarations more secure, efficient and cost-effective, it is important to look at the risks first. Business credit card risks can be divided into three groups.

1. Employee fraud

By fraud, we mean employees deliberately misusing their business credit cards for personal purchases instead of business purposes. Although this risk does not occur much in practice, every case is one too many.

This is how you reduce the risk of fraud:

• Set clear guidelines on the use of business credit cards for your employees
• Choose a spending limit per employee, card or expense type. This allows you to block certain expenses, such as gambling or cash withdrawals.

If an employee does use the business credit card illegally, Unauthorised Use Insurance protects you against this risk. Most credit card companies include this as standard. Check the terms and conditions for this.

2. Insecure business payments

Besides employee fraud, there is also the risk of skimming, phishing and stealing credit card data by people outside your organisation. To reduce this risk, credit card companies take special measures. These are included in the terms and conditions and provide extra security.

Unsafe business credit card payments are reduced by:

• 24/7 monitoring of business spending. If there is a payment in Amsterdam and two minutes later in New York, the cardholder is called immediately and the business credit card blocked if necessary.
• Internet guarantee. Gives you your money back if the credit card is found to be fraudulent.
• Delivery guarantee. Do you buy a product over the internet with your business credit card, but it does not arrive? Then the credit card company will find out what the problem is. Often the money is refunded immediately. Check the terms and conditions.
• Free insurance on business payments. If something goes wrong after the purchase, it is also insured against loss, theft, and damage.

3. Lack of control over corporate spending

Letting go of control can cause uncertainty among finance managers. Business credit card payments are often only visible at the end of the month. Your finance team can then no longer intervene in time.

• You can easily solve this problem. To do this, link business credit cards to a claims system. Employees add their expenses by uploading a picture of the receipt into the system. Keeping paper receipts is thus no longer necessary.
• The business credit card expense is directly linked to the correct cost centre in the claim system. This saves time and improves control over business expenses. It gives you instant insight into all business transactions. And that ensures grip.

How business credit cards provide extra security and control over corporate spending

Business credit cards give you control over your spending management. Especially if you combine them with a digital declaration system. This way, you always have insight into business credit card payments. This ensures you can intervene quickly if needed. And thanks to insurance, you are extra protected against fraud, theft and risky payments. Be careful, as conditions vary from one credit card company to another.

Extra security of ICS business credit cards

With ICS business credit cards, almost all purchases are insured. ICS also offers 24/7 monitoring of credit card payments and you can set a limit per card or block certain expenses. With these extra assurances, you are in control of business spending.
Linking business credit cards to a digital declaration system can therefore give you the following:

• You save up to 75% of claim processing time
• You reduce the risk of fraud by always having visibility into credit card spending
• You ensure that virtually all payments are insured

Get a grip on expenditure management with business credit cards

Do you want more control over expenditure management within your organisation? Then opt for the use of business credit cards in combination with a good declaration system. Would you like to know more about the advantages of using business credit cards? Then take a look at our ICS business credit cards.