When should businesses use virtual payment cards?
In an increasingly digitized world virtual cards have emerged as one of the safest, most convenient forms of payment for businesses. The use of virtual payment cards has drastically reduced incidents of fraud and credit card theft.
Not only are these cards help keep your finances safe but they also offer an extremely convenient tool that can be used for a variety of business payments. Virtual card payments have, therefore, become a must-have for businesses.
What are virtual cards and how do they work?
Virtual cards are essentially digital versions or copies of original, physical credit cards. Before you can understand how do virtual card payments work you first need to know that these cards are not exactly cards themselves but are linked with a physical credit card.
Virtual cards are generated as a unique 16-digit number and CVV that is linked to your primary card. At the time of generation, you can specify how the card is going to be used and how it will work, i.e. you can set funds limit, expiry date, single or recurring use, and so on.
Advantages of virtual payment cards for businesses
1. Increased security
Using virtual card payments for businesses adds a much-needed extra layer of security to your finances. With virtual cards at your disposal, you will no longer have to worry about your actual company credit card being misused or stolen.
Additionally, you only need to top up these cards with the amount that needs to be spent, so your account funds are always kept protected.
2. Simplified expense management
Virtual cards typically come linked with an expense management software that helps you manage each and every penny that your company spends.
All transactions made via your virtual cards will immediately get logged into the expense management system, as expenses are made in real-time.
3. Better control and monitoring
You get a lot more control over your finances with virtual card payments. You can create dedicated cards for different departments, employees, and vendors and monitor how each card is being used from your card management dashboard. You can also set card use controls to ensure company expense policy compliance.
4. Reduced payment processing costs
Using virtual cards for payments can also help reduce the amount of money you pay for processing payments to vendors or suppliers.
These cards can be used to make both domestic as well as international payments at extremely low associated costs, with providers such as Volopay you won’t even have to pay any processing fees.
5. Simplified vendor management
Managing all your vendors and their payments with one card can be quite complicated.
Instead, if you use virtual cards you can issue dedicated cards for each of your vendors and manage all your vendor payments from one unified dashboard.
You can even set up automated, recurring payments for repeat vendors and never miss a payment date.
6. Hassle-free AP process
With virtual cards at your disposal the accounts payable process becomes much easier than it otherwise would have been.
You can easily use these cards to pay for all your accounts payables and the transaction data will be automatically tracked and recorded.
With this method, you won’t have to worry about processing piles of documents either.
Enjoy flexible and safe payments
Use cases for virtual payment cards in businesses
1. For online purchases
Using your original company credit card to make online purchases may be a bit risky given the prevalence of online fraud. To avoid this you can simply use virtual cards for online purchases.
2. For employee expenses
Instead of having employees spend out of their own pocket and go through the arduous process of expense reimbursement you can simply issue them with their individual virtual cards.
3. Subscriptions and recurring payments
Virtual cards can also be used as subscription or recurring payment cards.
At the time of card generation, you simply need to specify that it will be a recurring payment card, set a recurring payment date and amount, and let the card handle the rest.
4. Manage travel expenses
Virtual cards are a great way to manage travel expenses. You can issue one for each traveling employee and never worry about travel reimbursement again.
5. Supplier payments
Vendor or supplier payments is another use case for virtual cards. You can set up dedicated cards for each of your vendors or suppliers, specify the payment date and amount at the time of generation, and never miss a payment date again.
Related read: 5 best virtual credit card providers in Australia (2024)
How to get a virtual card for my business?
To get a virtual card for your business you first need to onboard with a virtual card provider or platform. To do this you are likely to have to satisfy certain eligibility requirements.
While these requirements differ from provider to provider you will generally required to be above a certain age and have a working business entity.
Some providers even require a minimum number of card users. Once you onboard with a virtual card provider getting the actual cards takes seconds.
Manage your business payments with Volopay virtual cards
If you’re on the lookout for a virtual card that is both feature-rich and budget-friendly at the same time then Volopay is definitely an option to consider.
With Volopay you can issue an unlimited number of virtual cards for your business at no additional cost whatsoever. This means you can create dedicated cards for a variety of use cases. You can assign cards to departments, set budgets, and use them for vendor payments and as travel, gift, or burner cards.
Additionally, Volopay virtual cards are protected by multiple layers of bank-grade security, and at the same time, you can set highly customizable card use controls.