If you are a small business owner with employees, the question of whether or not you should give your employees a company credit or debit card is most likely one that you’ve been faced with. This question can bring up a lot of concerns. Protecting company assets, while maintaining good operating practices, is a huge challenge for almost all business owners. If managed correctly, allowing employees to utilize a debit or credit card can be very helpful to your business, and Idaho Central can help you mitigate the risks.
Considerations
When your employees have a card that they can use, there are many benefits. First, this is one of the easiest ways to save your business time. If you are the only one in your business that has a card that can be used, this can create a bottleneck for purchases that need to be made. Each time an employee needs to make a purchase for any project or inventory that they are in charge of, they would be able to make that purchase themselves rather than rely on finding you and getting access to your card first. Allowing them to have their own cards can ease that burden. It also allows for extra layers of tracking, which may not be possible otherwise. When your employees each have their own cards, you are able to clearly track and see who is spending what, and set your future budgets accordingly. With an Idaho Central card, all cards are also protected by Visa’s zero fraud liability. This adds an extra layer of protection for your business that you otherwise wouldn’t have if your employees were instead dealing only in cash or checks.
While there are many clear benefits to allowing your employees to have their own cards, there are many concerns that business owners have when making this decision. The additional risks that come along with employees having their own cards can include opening your business up to risks of fraudulent charges, purchases that haven’t been approved, and can add concerns about the logistics of managing having multiple cards “floating around.” As a business owner, you may also have concerns about your employees misusing their cards, or about what happens when an employee leaves the business. These questions can result in a lot of hesitation, and many business owners may overlook the benefits altogether.
CardControl
At Idaho Central, we have a solution for these common challenges! It’s called CardControl, and is a free feature we offer to our members.
CardControl is a mobile app that allows you to stay in control of the type, amounts, and where your employees can use their company card. Here are some examples of what this can do for your business:
Location Control
Set limits on where the card can be used. Location Control allows you to create a virtual wall around the location you have authorized.
Transaction Control
You can enable your Transaction Control to select the specific types of purchases. For instance, if your employee would not need to make online purchases, you can turn this setting “off” to prevent this particular purchase type.
Merchant Control
Merchant Control is a way to limit even where the card is used. If you would like to block purchases made from a gas station, simply turn this feature to no.
Spending Limits
Spending Limits are a major concern as well. In order to limit exposure, we recommend putting spending limits on each card. This is as easy as setting a dollar amount that you are comfortable with your employee using daily.
Additional Security
In addition to CardControl, we can also provide a Business Card Management tool upon approval. This tool allows you to turn employee cards on and off as needed, set limits on each of your employees’ cards, and have full manageability of how your limit is being spent.
These are just a few examples of how we can help your business run as efficient as possible, while minimizing risk. Contact your local Business Relationship Officer for more details on how Card Control can help you and your business!
