Company credit cards: A report of the experiences of HR Campus Travel & Expense Team

IBCP and CBCP cards

IBCP (individual billed, corporate paid) cards are credit cards issued to individual employees. The statement is issued in the employee's name and always settled direct by the company. This card type can be used for all kinds of purchases and is very common in Switzerland. The credit card owner must settle personal deductions themselves.

Unlike the IBCP model, with CBCP (corporate billed, corporate paid) cards the amount is invoiced to the company and not to the individual. It is the company's responsibility to organise repayment of personal deductions.

The major advantage of these two options is obvious – employees don't have to do anything. Even banks prefer the models and promote them accordingly.

There are disadvantages to this system, however, especially for processing expenses:

• Companies have to deal with significantly longer expense cycles.
• The finance team has to wait for complete expense reports from all the employees in order to carry out reconciliation. Not only can this be time-consuming and laborious, it can also lead to delays in paying invoices or to invoices being paid without being checked.

IBIP cards

The IBIP (individual billed, individual paid) card is in the employee's name, not that of the company. The company guarantees the card and so can facilitate higher limits than for a personal card. The employee pays the credit card statement though.

This creates advantages for the company:

• It doesn't have to worry about reconciliation and so saves the Finance team time. It is up to the employee to check it.
• On average they can reduce expense cycles by two weeks, as it is in employees' interests to submit their statements as quickly as possible in order to receive their expenses before the credit card bill is due.
• The transaction data in the system is absolutely correct.
• The correct exchange rate is used.
• Less manual inputting for the employee.

The IBIP model requires more effort from the banks. They therefore tend to recommend another model. If you nevertheless decide on an IBIP, you must expect less interesting pricing models.

Speed up and automate with IBIP processes

Whenever possible, we recommend using IBIP cards. With IBIP Walking Cards you encourage your employees to submit their expense accounts promptly and in full. The Edi expenses tool simplifies the process:

1. After a purchase the employee photographs the receipts directly using the Edi app, or uploads them to the desktop.
2. In just a few minutes, modern integrations transfer the credit card feed to Edi.
3. Edi recognises the transaction and automatically allocates it to a suitable receipt.

Edi works closely with all the common credit card providers, such as Viseca and Cornèrcard. These partnerships help you to speed up the onboarding process. Nevertheless, we recommend involving your bank in the project and applying for the card feeds as soon as possible, as some banks have longer processing times and so could delay the project.

Thanks to credit card integration in the financial systems, employees and the Finance team always have an overview and control of all transactions.