How to Use a Corporate Card for Business Expenses

What Is a Corporate Card?

A corporate card - also called a business credit card or company card - is a payment card issued to employees that allows them to charge business expenses directly to the company rather than paying out of their own pocket and claiming reimbursement later. For employees, this eliminates the cash flow burden of fronting business expenses. For the business, it simplifies expense tracking by centralising all business spending on cards that feed directly into your accounting system.

Corporate cards come in two main forms: corporate liability cards (where the company is responsible for the balance) and individual liability cards (where the individual employee is responsible and the company reimburses them). Most small businesses use corporate liability cards - the company pays the card bill, and employees are accountable for the transactions on their individual cards.

Benefits of Using Corporate Cards

Used well, corporate cards offer significant advantages over employee reimbursement:

Cash flow for employees: Employees don't need to front money for business expenses, which is particularly valuable for travel and larger purchases
Faster reconciliation: When corporate card transactions import automatically into your accounting software, expense recording becomes much faster and more accurate
Spending visibility: You can see in real time what is being spent across all cards, by whom, and on what - without waiting for monthly expense claims
Rewards and cashback: Business cards typically offer better rewards rates than personal cards - points, cashback, or air miles that benefit the company
Credit terms: Depending on the card, you get 30–60 days of interest-free credit, which can improve cash flow
Fraud protection: Easier to investigate and dispute fraudulent transactions on a corporate card than on personal accounts

Setting Up Controls and Spending Limits

The risk of corporate cards is misuse - intentional or accidental. The mitigation is controls. Most corporate card programmes let you set per-card spending limits, restricted merchant category codes (so a card can only be used at certain types of merchants), geographic restrictions, and daily or monthly spending caps. Use these tools actively rather than issuing unlimited cards and hoping for the best.

Pair card issuance with a clear written policy: what cards can be used for, what requires pre-approval, what documentation is required (receipt for every transaction over a threshold), and what consequences follow from policy violations. Related reading: how to set an expense policy for your team.

The Receipt Requirement

A corporate card statement showing a transaction is not a sufficient record for tax purposes on its own. It shows you spent £45 at a restaurant - but not whether it was a client meal (deductible), a team lunch (potentially deductible), or a personal dinner charged to the company by mistake. You still need receipts that document the nature of each expense and its business purpose. Require employees to attach a receipt or note for every card transaction above your policy threshold, and build a reconciliation check into your monthly close.

Related reading: best practices for storing receipts.

Monthly Card Reconciliation

Every month, reconcile your corporate card statement against your accounting records. Every transaction on the statement should appear in your books with a category and a receipt. Any unexplained transaction is a problem to investigate. This process is much faster with a good accounting system that imports card transactions automatically - you're just reviewing and confirming rather than manually entering each line. Build card reconciliation into your month-end closing process.

How Note.now Makes This Easy

Note.now connects to business bank accounts and corporate cards, importing transactions automatically. Employees can attach receipts to transactions directly from their phones, and the system prompts for receipts on any unreconciled card transaction. Your card spending is always visible in real time. See also: how to track business expenses the right way. Explore Note.now's expense tools, or start free today.