How does your team claim expenses? Do they use their own personal credit card and claim the amount back each month? Or do they have access to a company credit card?

The best way to manage what your employees spend is by having a prepaid card. Prepaid cards such as Pleo and Soldo, to name a few, enable you to monitor what your team spends. With the use of a mobile app you can see what they are spending in real time. You can set budgets so they can only spend a certain amount in a single transaction, or on a frequency basis.

Each member will have their own card and app. They can see what they’re spending and upload receipts as they spend. They no longer have to worry about losing receipts and you don’t have the ordeal of sifting through piles and piles of paperwork to ensure you’ve got the evidence for everything spent. Once they upload to the app you will have access straight away to review the documents. It’s perfect for managing team spending.

What’s great is that you can top each card up with different amounts, whether that be by standing order or on an adhoc basis. This enables you to control the limit of expenses allowed depending on each individual's contract terms and conditions and what their position is in the hierarchy. You can also set the various spending budgets per card holder so everyone can be different. 

If you like to keep your bookkeeping process streamlined then you will be pleased to know that both Pleo and Soldo can integrate with your accounting software. They both integrate with Xero and Quickbooks and have Sage compatibility. By using these cards it means that your bookkeeper will no longer have to chase you for missing paperwork providing your employees upload the paperwork as they spend. 

When employees use their own personal cards for expenses they are more likely to keep hold of their receipts in order to claim the expense back from the business. However, you then lose visibility as a business. The prepaid card ensures consistent visibility. We strongly advise having an employee expenses policy in place which confirms that anything which is unaccounted for is deducted from their salary. Pleo and Soldo are both really easy to use but have a training session with your employees so that they are clear on how it works, that way there’s no excuse not to follow the procedure. 

Both Pleo and Soldo are free to join for upto 5 users. Why not give it a try and let us know how you get on?