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by: RobertBain
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Corporate credit extended to employees is often essential for the operations of your business. You need to be able to trust those that work for you to use it correctly. While there will be some honest mistakes from time to time, there can also be those that are using it for their own benefit.
One of the easiest ways to keep employees honest when they use corporate credit is to let them know what the process will be. If they know how to correctly document their expenses and what they need to verify it, there won't be so many problems. It may sound harsh but you should have a policy that if the expense can't be verified that they don't get credit for it.
Not everyone should need to have access to corporate credit, and you want to limit it where you can. It is going to be easier to track expenses if you only have a small group of people making them. It will really depend on the type of business that you offer to people though. Sometimes you just can't help but allowing a large number of people to access it.
The big thing though is to ensure all that have access to it don't misuse it. They should only be using it for business related expenses. If their spouse travels for business with them then their cost of airfare and meals needs to come out of their personal budget. You should be asking for verification of what they are doing at the time of a given charge. This way there is a good record of all that information.
Some employers are afraid to be so tight when it comes to corporate credit. They fear it will give employees the impression that they aren't trusted. Yet if you just explain it from an accounting point of view they will understand it. They should realize that your business can be audited by the IRS at any time and you need such documentation for your own records.
For many businesses, it simply isn't realistic to prohibit the access to corporate credit. Yet you really need to know who is using it and why. Each credit card charge should be carefully reviewed. You can have cards handed out to employees that are on one account but with different card numbers. Make sure the credit card company is willing to provide you with an itemized statement for each of those cards.
It seems like access to corporate credit is something that employees need more and more. This is due to the large scale of businesses taking on customers from all over the world and not just locally anymore. For some employees, they travel out of town for business several times each month. They need a way to be able to pay for the related expenses they will incur.
If an employee should provide you with business related expenses that don't make sense, they need to be addressed about it. They may have accidentally turned in one of their own receipts. It can be hard at times for a person to keep their personal and business charges separate. Make sure you allow them the opportunity to resolve the situation if you feel it may have been an honest error.
Robert Bain writes all about small business. Discover the difference between business credit and true corporate credit that the banks are hoping you don't discover.