Prepaid cards
Prepaid cards give you complete control over your company spending. Learn what they are, how they work and how to use them in your business here.
Are prepaid cards best for your business?
With prepaid cards, your staff get autonomy over their spending – but you stay in control. If you’re tired of the lack of oversight and additional admin that traditional company cards bring, then they could be the answer.
Watch the video to discover how prepaid accounts could revolutionise your business expenses.
Get startedHow prepaid cards can help your business
Prepaid cards take the hassle out of business spending, for you and your team. They put an end to days of tracking down who spent what on the company account, back and forth over expenses and having to approve every transaction.
- Free your staff
Give an company card to anyone that needs one, so they never have to spend their own money on behalf of the company again - Increase security
Prepaid cards come with budgets and limits that put you in total control of spending – and they’re 100% siloed from your primary account - Make expenses easy
Track transactions automatically on every account, so there’s no need to approve expense reports at the end of the month - No credit checks needed
Order a new card in seconds, with no extra checks required
About prepaid cards
What are prepaid cards?
Prepaid cards are individual company accounts that enable staff or departments within your business to manage their own spending, but keep you in control. For many companies, they’re a natural evolution from traditional company credit and debit cards.
You top up each account with funds that your team can use for all their business expenses: from day-to-day costs to one-off purchases. Using an online console, you’ll be able to set rules, budgets and limits that dictate precisely how each card can be used.
How prepaid business cards work
Prepaid business cards work a little bit differently to traditional company cards. Instead of giving staff access to your primary account, or a set credit limit each month, you top up each card with funds whenever you see fit.
Employees can then manage their own spend, but only within the budgets, limits and rules you’ve set – so there’s no risk of misuse.
Some prepaid business cards come with extra features to make managing spending even easier. With Soldo, for example, you can automate expenses with integrated apps and access real-time tracking with our web payments console. So you don’t have to wait for a bank statement to see who has spent what.
Plus, you get access to advanced reporting tools. These enable you to identify extravagant individuals and teams, as well as compare spending to value.
Who can get a prepaid bank card?
Almost any business can get set up with a prepaid bank card provider, and once you’re up and running you can give an account to any individual, team or department that needs one. To start using Soldo, you just need to be a registered company.
You won’t have to pass a credit check at any stage in the process, because there’s no credit involved. And there are no age restrictions, so junior team members can start spending responsibly too.
How to get started with prepaid debit cards
There are five simple steps to follow to start using prepaid debit cards in your business:
- Choose your Soldo plan and register in minutes
- We’ll approve you and send your login information
- Use a bank transfer to fund your Company Wallet
- Add employees and order your Soldo cards
- Transfer funds to your users instantly, for free
We had a traditional company credit card scheme, with lots of different departments all using a small number of cards. We also had approximately 35 different petty cash pots and all the associated admin that comes with them.
Soldo has enabled us to close our old corporate credit card scheme, remove petty cash from our business and reduce the number of expense claims we process. This has reduced the administrative burden, replacing separate manual processes with a single system.
Where can prepaid Mastercard® cards be used?
Most prepaid cards are backed by a leading payments company. Soldo uses Mastercard® cards, which your team will be able to use wherever they can use a standard debit or credit card. They’re accepted by over 20 million merchants in more than 150 countries, with no limits on usage – except any rules you set.
There are no fees for domestic transactions, and our FX fee is fixed at 1%
Traditional vs. prepaid company cards
Before the rise of prepaid cards, there were two main ways to manage company spending: debit and credit cards. Both cause headaches for growing businesses, which prepaid accounts solve:
- Debit cards give employees unrestricted access to the company account, while prepaid cards give them siloed funds for spending.
- Credit cards let staff drive up debt, with the only budget being your credit limit. With prepaid cards, there’s no debt whatsoever
Plus, prepaid company cards bring a new level of control and oversight. Soldo, for instance, enables you to:
- Set separate daily, weekly or monthly budgets for travel, entertainment, online subscriptions and more
- Outline hours in which the cards are active
- Disable or enable cards – or contactless spending – at the click of a button
Worried about leaving a senior staff member out of pocket? Set up auto-top ups to ensure it will never happen.
What is a prepaid credit card?
A prepaid credit card is another term for a prepaid business card. Despite often being referred to as prepaid credit cards, there isn’t any credit involved at all. Instead, you top up each account with funds for spending.
This brings several benefits for companies – staff can’t drive up debt, and you get much more control over who’s spending what.
How you can use prepaid cards
Prepaid cards for business expenses
Expense management can be a chore for your team. Most companies will ask staff to pay out of their pocket to cover a business cost, then hold on to the receipt until it’s time to complete an expense report. After that, it can be weeks before they get reimbursed.
Soldo’s prepaid cards make the whole process much more straightforward. Your team get dedicated accounts for business expenses that come with allocated company funds. All they have to do to is snap a photo of their receipt at purchase, and Soldo’s app will do the rest.
Prepaid cards for travel expenses
When it comes to specific uses such as travel expenses, prepaid cards really come into their own. Salespeople on the road, for instance, often have to spend heavily on food, accommodation, entertainment and more – asking them to cover these costs themselves just isn’t feasible. With prepaid cards, they no longer lose out when they go on business trips.
Prepaid cards also give you much more oversight over travel spending. With Soldo, you can track transactions in real time and use advanced controls to restrict travel expenses to what’s permitted within your policy.
Sending staff on business trips abroad? Soldo’s FX fee is fixed at 1%.
Prepaid cards for fuel expenses
Fuel cards enable you to silo petrol spending, but that’s it. They’re limited to a specific set of petrol stations, and can’t be used anywhere else. So your team will still have to pay for travel, food and entertainment themselves. And they don’t come with real-time tracking, advanced rules or automated expense management.
Managing fuel expenses with prepaid cards is much more straightforward. They provide a single solution for petrol, accommodation, food, entertainment and more. Your team will be able to use them anywhere, so they’ll never have to detour to find a participating petrol station again.
Prepaid cards for subscription management
Different departments in your business will probably have a few different online subscriptions to manage: whether they’re for SaaS tools, media or learning resources. Instead of wasting your time whenever something needs renewing, use prepaid cards to give each department a budget to pick and purchase their own subscriptions.
As well as saving you time, this increases staff autonomy and encourages responsible spending. You’ll still have total control and insight – so there’s no chance of misuse.
Prepaid cards for online payments
Whether buying media for digital ads, booking hotels and flights, purchasing supplies or more, countless online payments crop up over a business’s day-to-day. Prepaid cards make it far easier to manage and process them all, without losing track of who’s bought what.
You can even create virtual prepaid cards. They work exactly like normal ones, but without the plastic – so they’re perfect for online payments. Some companies create one-off virtual accounts for specific transactions, so there’s zero risk of any other funds being compromised if they’re not fully confident about the vendor.
Prepaid cards as employee benefits
Employee benefits are crucial to maintaining staff morale, but they can lead to lots of unnecessary admin – especially for smaller businesses. With prepaid cards, you can give each team member an account to purchase their own benefits, increasing responsibility and saving you time.
You could, for example, create a virtual card for every staff member to manage their learning and development. Or give team leaders a specific budget for rewarding good work.
Why choose Soldo's prepaid cards?
Automated expenses
The Soldo app takes the paperwork out of expenses. All your staff have to do is snap a photo of their receipt, and we’ll take care of the rest
Real-time spend tracking
The instant someone uses a Soldo card, it’ll appear on your live web console. And you can take a closer look with advanced reporting tools
Accounting integrations
Exporting transactions to Xero takes a single click – or two clicks to any other major online accounting software
Mastercard® cards
Soldo’s Mastercard® cards are flexible and secure, and accepted by merchants everywhere
Fair fees
We don’t charge for domestic transactions, or transferring funds – so loaded funds can all be spent by the cardholder
FAQs
What’s the best prepaid card for my business?
The best prepaid card for your business will depend on your usage, as well as what features you’re looking for. Here are a few points to consider:
Number of users. Estimate how many accounts your business will need, today and a year or so down the line. This will help calculate your total costs
Fees. You’ll probably look at monthly costs first, but it’s worth assessing transaction and top-up fees too, as these can add up. With Soldo, domestic transactions and topping up accounts are both freeAdvanced features. Do you need real-time transaction tracking – or integrated apps for automating expenses? Make a comparison between the functionality offered by each provider, so you can pick which features are important to you
How do I get a prepaid card?
It depends on your provider, but you’ll usually pay a monthly fee for each prepaid account you set up. Soldo comes with multiple different plans, so you only pay for features that you actually use.
- Prepaid cards, plus the mobile app and web console
- Limits, rules and budgets to control spending
- Integrations with Quickbooks Online, Sage and Xero
- Automated expense processing
- Free domestic transactions
- Instant and free fund transfers
- Automatic top-ups
- Customer support
The Soldo Pro plan, for example, is ideal for smaller teams. It comes with all of Soldo’s key features, such as:
Or you can upgrade to a Soldo Premium plan for even more features, including customisable cards, configurable roles and advanced reporting.
Where can I buy prepaid cards?
You can buy prepaid cards for your business from a provider such as Soldo. All you need to do to get started is pick a plan, fill out a few details and decide how many accounts you want to begin with. Then once we’ve approved your application, we’ll send you cards to top up with funds.
How do I put money on a prepaid card?
The precise process to add money to a prepaid business card depends on your provider. With Soldo, you add funds to your Company Wallet via a bank transfer, which you can then allocate to any individual account via our web payment console.
You can top up funds at any time, and the payment will process instantly. As long as you aren’t converting any currency, we’ll never charge you to add money to a prepaid account.
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