How to Track Company Credit Card Spending

Company credit card spending is tracked by bringing three things into one list: who used the card, the receipt for each purchase and the statement at the end of the month. The trouble is that in most companies these three pieces of information sit in three different places. This article gives you a practical routine for tracking card spend without waiting for month-end, a checklist for each statement line, basic card policy rules and the criteria to use when choosing software. Where documents and tax are mentioned, the rules described are Turkish rules.

Why is it hard to track company credit card spending?

Tracking company credit card spending is hard because the card holder, the receipt and the statement are created in separate places and at different times.

A typical month goes like this:

• The card holder makes the purchase; the receipt stays in a wallet, an inbox or the glove compartment.
• The statement arrives at month-end; its lines usually show only the merchant name, the date and the amount.
• Accounting opens the statement and asks, line by line: "What was this, where is the receipt, which cost centre does it go to?"

Because several weeks pass between the purchase and the statement, the card holder no longer remembers the details, receipts get lost and the month-end close slips. When more than one person uses the same card, it can be unclear who even made the purchase. The root cause is rarely bad intent; it is information that arrives late and scattered.

How do you track company credit card spending?

Company credit card spending is tracked with a fixed routine: collect the receipt at the moment of purchase, then compare it with the statement at month-end. The five steps below fit most companies.

1. Match each card to a user. Write down who owns each card and, for shared cards, who is responsible. You cannot ask anyone about spending on a card with no known owner.
2. Collect the receipt at the moment of purchase. The card holder should record a photo of the receipt on the day of the purchase, with a short description and the business purpose. A mobile expense app makes this step easier.
3. Compare the monthly statement with recorded expenses. Every statement line should have an expense record and a document against it. Match on card, date and amount.
4. Follow up unmatched lines. Collect lines with no matching record in one list, ask the person responsible and close them before the closing date. Tracking the number of open lines month by month shows problems in the process early.
5. Assign a category and cost centre. Give every purchase an expense category and a cost centre, so card spending lands in the right place in budget reports.

For receipt capture and expense entry, see expense management. For the statement comparison step by step, see corporate credit card statement reconciliation.

What should you check on every statement line?

On every statement line you should check the card holder, the matching expense record, the document, the business purpose, the accounting coding and policy compliance.

A note: in most cases a statement line does not replace an invoice or receipt. Confirm with your mali müşavir (certified public accountant in Turkey) which document is sufficient for booking the expense under the Turkish Tax Procedure Law (213 sayılı Vergi Usul Kanunu).

Which policy rules do you need for card use?

Card use needs written rules that define who carries a card, what it can be used for, the limits, the deadline for documents and how exceptions are approved.

A short, workable card policy covers these points:

• Card ownership: Who gets a card, are shared cards allowed, and how is a card closed when an employee leaves?
• Allowed spending: Which categories can be paid by card, and which (for example personal purchases) are prohibited?
• Limits: Upper limits per person, per category or per transaction.
• Document deadline: The maximum number of days after a purchase within which the receipt must be recorded.
• Personal spending: How a personal purchase made by mistake is paid back to the company.
• Exceptions: Who approves a purchase that breaks the rules, and on what grounds.

If the policy only lives in a PDF, checks are still done by hand. To connect the rules to expense entries, take a look at spend policy management.

Are there programs that track company credit card spending automatically?

Yes, there are expense management programs that largely automate tracking by matching the company credit card statement with expense records.

How "automatic" these programs are depends on how card data gets into the system. When you evaluate a solution, look at these criteria:

• Card setup: Can cards be defined for the company and linked to users?
• Statement import: How does the statement get into the system, and can file layouts from different banks be used?
• Matching: Are statement lines compared with recorded expenses, and are unmatched lines visible?
• Mobile receipt capture: Can the card holder record the receipt by phone at the moment of purchase?
• Policy and approval: Do card purchases go through the same policy checks and approval process as other expenses?
• Accounting export: Can categories, cost centres and documents be passed to your accounting system?

In Masraff this is done with the Statement module (Ekstre Modülü). Cards are defined for the company and linked to users. The card statement is uploaded as an Excel file and its columns are mapped to fields in the system. After the upload, lines on matched cards are compared with expenses, and for lines with no matching expense, new expenses are created automatically. Accounting can then focus on completing missing documents and explanations instead of hunting for missing lines one by one. For details, see corporate card reconciliation.

Conclusion: do not leave tracking to month-end

The essence of tracking company credit card spending is to collect information at the moment of purchase and to use the statement as a checkpoint. When card-to-user matching, receipts on the spot, a monthly comparison, a list of open lines and correct coding come together, the close gets shorter and month-end surprises become rarer. To match statements with expenses in one place, explore Masraff corporate card reconciliation.