When you give traditional corporate cards to your employees to use for business purposes, expense management becomes a tedious task. Managing business spending was cumbersome, from expense approval and recording accounting entries to reconciling payment transactions.

Virtual cards can do much more than manage your business spending. It does everything from one-tap issuance to invoice management and transaction reconciliation for you!

Let’s see what these virtual cards are, how they work, and their benefits for businesses.

What are Virtual Cards?

A virtual card is an electronic card with a 16-digit card number, a CVV, and an expiration date. It is everything a regular corporate debit card can do but without a physical form.

However, these virtual cards are more than just your regular debit cards. Other integrated features include expense control, real-time tracking facilities, fraud protection, etc.

Thus, virtual debit cards are taking over the small business world as they make it incredibly smooth to manage business expenses. Let’s see how they do it by understanding how virtual cards work.

Fact: According to recent research, the total value of B2B virtual card transactions will be over $6 trillion by 2026 globally.

How Do Virtual Cards Work?

An employer needs to issue a virtual expense card to the employee. The employee will receive it on his mobile through an app. And he can use it to make payments for business, such as travel, software subscriptions, food, or any other business expense.

Employers can set card transaction limits for their employees, and they will be notified upon each transaction, and the transactions will be recorded in the integrated accounting system. Therefore, virtual cards do more than facilitate online or in-store payments by offering multiple functionalities with one tap.

Read More: What is a Corporate Credit Card & How it Works!

How Can Virtual Cards Make Your Business Spending Easier?

Businesses have seen a massive spurt in virtual cards in the UAE since consumers started shifting towards adopting digital payment methods. So let’s see how virtual cards change how businesses manage their expenses.

Instant Issuance

Virtual cards are electronic cards without physical presence; hence, they are issued with just one click. Therefore, once you have done all the KYC procedures correctly, you can give virtual cards to the employees with just one tap.

Real-time Expense Tracking

As an employer, you would want to receive live notifications of how much your employees spend. So they offer real-time expense tracking, and you also get to see the bill with all the details of the expense incurred.

Automated Bookkeeping

The bookkeeping feature will automatically record an accounting entry once the employee has made a transaction. It will categorize the expense under a relevant accounting head using pre-filled algorithms.

Fraud Prevention

Virtual card transactions are safe and secured since they use a 16-digit unique number. The cards also have permission settings where you can set limits for each card. This way, you can restrict the cardholders from approving their purchases.

Employee Spending Control

You can control your employees’ expenses by setting limits to various actions on the virtual cards and, for example, limiting their daily spending, putting controls for each category of expenses, etc.

Effective AP Automation

You can also manage your accounts’ payables with the card’s AP automation feature. Not all virtual cards offer this feature. However, some allow you to integrate your card transactions smoothly with your company’s accounting system.

The card transactions can easily get converted into accounting entries with valid documentation. You can also manage your accounts’ payables since your transactions are integrated with the accounting system.

Card Freeze Facility

You can immediately freeze the virtual card facility for any employees you think no longer require a virtual company card. In addition, the card freeze feature allows you to restrict an employee from using your company debit card smoothly.

Thus, expense management for your business becomes so easily accessible that it offers you control management for your spending. Want to know how you can simplify your business spending?

Let’s see how you can stay on top of your business expense management.

How to Simplify Your Business Expenses?

Xpence Visa virtual cards allow you to manage your business expenses by issuing virtual cards with just a single tap. You can enjoy multiple benefits, such as

– Automated expenses

– Spending rules and controls

– Simplified bookkeeping

– Globally accepted