They’re one of the biggest perks of using a corporate credit card: cash back in rebates. But is your company getting every dollar it’s entitled to? Maybe not.
Data from the GBTA Foundation found that many of your peers don’t have a handle on this:
- 92% of companies had rebate agreements in place with their corporate card providers, but
- 22% were unsure if they were actually receiving the full amount of the rebate.
Which means plenty of money could be getting left on the table.
After going through the time and expense to set up and administer a program, the last thing you want is to have it not pay off as well as it could.
To make sure your company isn’t in this boat, check out these four strategies you can tap to be confident you’re taking full advantage:
1. Use your credit card rebates strategically
Some credit card companies will, for example, offer 2% cash back on all purchases, but 3% back in a single spend category of your choice. The best part? You can change what that category is month-to-month.
That means if you have a very large purchase coming up, you’d want to switch your bigger rebate percentage to that one.
Of course, that can only happen with forethought and communication between purchasers and department heads and Finance.
2. Understand conditions that decrease the value of rebates
Beware: With certain corporate card programs, the rebate percentage goes down once you spend over a certain amount in the category you selected.
So that’s something you’d want Accounts Payable to monitor throughout the month so you get a heads up when you’re approaching that limit … and before you hit it.
3. Ensure as much spend as possible goes on corporate cards
You need to enlist employees on this one. An important step? Training from the get-go, as soon as employees get issued their cards.
Many employees prefer to use their personal credit cards (to get their own rewards) and then submit for reimbursement. But for your company to receive the maximum benefit in credit card rebates, you want a policy in place that keeps spend on the corporate card — with personal card use only in emergency situations.
And be sure you clearly outline just what counts as an “emergency” so everyone’s on the same page.
4. Incentivize as necessary
Like most things, setting the tone from the top is one of the quickest routes to success. One of your peers decided to approach things in a different way when they knew cards were being underutilized.
They targeted their general managers. They incentivized the GMs to put more spend on cards by refunding the rebate percentage that comes from the bank issuers back to that GM’s individual cost center. That quickly made those managers highly motivated to put whatever expenses they could on cards.