Enhancing Expense Management With Corporate Cards

Overview

Financial technology businesses help other businesses to overcome a range of financial challenges. 

When the client came to us, they were seeking assistance with their payment infrastructure. At the time, they were making payments to employees and suppliers by cash and cheque, and manually managing and tracking their expenses.

By implementing Nium, issuing business expense cards, and digitising their expense management, they were able to reduce their corporate expenses by more than 50%.

With that said, the solution we implemented for this client can work for any business, regardless of industry. We have had the pleasure of implementing this same solution in a range of scenarios, and each has resulted in a 50%+ reduction.

The Challenge

In this case, the business we assisted was handling their expense management the same way many businesses do. Making payouts by cash and cheque, and manually processing and accounting for transactions.

The system they were using, while typical, consumed a lot of resources, and was putting them at a higher risk of misuse, fraud, and theft. 

Here’s a typical example of how their payments were handled:

• If an employee needed to make a payment, they’d have to ask the CEO or a team manager as they’re the only ones with authority to approve payments. As you can imagine, doing this every time someone needs to make a purchase is inefficient, time-consuming and costly. 
• If the request is approved, the employee has to keep a copy of the receipt so they can give it physically or virtually to the finance team or manager. They’ll then manually document the transaction. 

While this system provides an illusion of control and order, in reality, it creates bottlenecks and reduces efficiency.

Managers and CEOs are too busy to watch over every transaction. Receipts are lost. Payments are not recorded. Unauthorised payments are made. Records don’t match up.

The odds of manually keeping track of everything and not having a single issue are slim. Even if everything goes to plan, this system still makes accounting and due diligence a serious challenge. 

Fortunately, this particular client was in the finance industry and was confident that a better solution existed. While they lacked the resources to create their own solution, they knew that if they searched, they would find a solution already on the market.

While technological advancements have revolutionised many aspects of business operations, expense management has not been so fortunate. Most of the solutions available still relied on cash, cheques, and business credit cards.

Reliance on these outdated payment technologies limits the degree of impact and improvements that are possible. The client knew that if they only moved from cash/cheques to traditional credit cards, they would miss out on other growth opportunities.

On the other hand, Nium’s business expense cards are a revolutionary new way of managing corporate expenses that solve many of the flaws of traditional payment methods.

Why They Chose Nium

The client chose Nium as we allow businesses to improve the efficiency of their financial operations. 

By providing employee expense cards and advanced expense management software, businesses can optimise their payroll, T&E/per diem, and payouts & disbursements. These changes alone can save businesses time and drastically reduce operational costs.

In the case of this client, they’d be able to solve the frustrating limitations of manually managing transactions with credit, cash and cheque. Such as:

• Poor security against fraud and misuse.
• Lack of control and customisation.
• Difficulty of tracking and expense management.
• Inefficient, time-consuming approval and authorisation.
• Excessive demand on CEOs and managers.

How Do Corporations Benefit From Nium?

As we mentioned earlier, Nium’s expense management and digital card platform provide a range of benefits that apply to any corporation in any industry. Here are just a few examples that benefited the client and can benefit you too:

• Enhanced User Experience
  Digital wallets and open-loop cards provide frictionless payment solutions. Business expense cards help businesses to fund and limit transactions across categories: from payroll to travel cards, all within one wallet.

• Virtual & Physical Cards
  Part of what makes Nium unique is that our platform allows businesses like our client to provide employees with unique logins and personal debit cards. Better yet, Nium offers both virtual and physical card options.
• Streamlined Onboarding
  Unlike other providers, Nium is a Visa Issuer which means we can move from onboarding to issuing cards in 4 – 6 weeks, rather than 9 to 12 months. For corporations in a hurry, this is immensely valuable.
• Advanced Spend Control
  Real-time updates allow businesses to track and manage expenses as they happen. By giving each employee a card, you can control how much they have access to, where they can spend (based on Merchant Categories), how much they can spend (limits), when the access expires, and whether they need approval to make a transaction or are authorised to spend. Managers can also control spend amounts by categories and currencies too.
  
• Automated Reconciliation
  By digitising their entire financial system, businesses can streamline and automate their reconciliation. Each time a transaction is made, Nium automatically logs the transaction, approval history, receipts and more so your team don’t have to.
• Increased Earnings
  Nium creates a new revenue stream for businesses by giving them a share of the revenue they collect during each transaction. The more your employees spend, the more you earn.
  

How It Works:

1. Setup: After integrating Nium, businesses can set up and define their program using limits and controls.
   
2. Share: Once the program is complete, management can assign cards and login details to each employee. 
   
3. Fund: Each employee’s card is then prefunded with a set amount of money like a regular debit card.
   
4. Spend: Employees can spend the funds on approved items until the funds run out.
   
5. Track: Each payment is automatically tracked, logged and made into expense reports viewable within Nium’s app. 
   

More About Nium

Nium, formerly known as InstaReM, began in 2015 to simplify and optimise the finances of corporations. We eventually scaled the offering to serve SMEs and businesses in all industries.

Today, Nium utilises radically innovative technology that makes spending, receiving, and managing funds faster, cheaper, and more transparent. It’s designed to integrate with our customer’s lives and business needs seamlessly. 

We have experts on the ground working with local regulators and financial institutions. With offices worldwide, we are in a position to foster these relationships.