The beginning of the 2020s has changed the labor market and the entire corporate world. Remote and hybrid employment are replacing stationary office jobs. Small companies and large corporations are increasingly relying on the services of freelancers and independent contractors. This increases business flexibility and improves satisfaction with working conditions.
But behind bright, uplifting pros are always darker, more grounded cons. The diversity of employment forms within one company or even within one structural unit often leads to more complicated payments and settlements, which negates the aforementioned flexibility.
One of the few solutions that can solve this problem is issuing expense cards for employees. Thanks to convenient management and improved analytics in cloud-based platforms like Wallester Business, they allow you to simplify calculations. We’ll tell you how.
Why New Employment Forms Need New Expense Management Systems?
Let’s imagine a standard workflow when working with an independent contractor. To perform a certain job, the contractor needs access to an online service to purchase advertising space. The contractor brings this information to the manager’s attention, who includes it in the expense plan for the next period. This document goes through several stages of approval and is often transformed before final implementation.
How long does it take to allocate the required amount to the contractor? In the best of cases (but rarely), it takes days. Typically, we are talking about weeks or even months. In the meantime, the work is not done, and the company loses profit and its market position.
Similarly, expenses for employees at remote and hybrid workplaces and employees on business trips can be approved similarly. The traditional approach is too cumbersome, bureaucratic, and inflexible, requiring changes.
Benefits of Expense Cards for Hybrid and Remote Teams
Employee expense credit cards are a revolutionary tool that fundamentally changes the approach to expense management. They have predefined spending limits and conditions for using funds.
In most cases, this allows employees to make purchases first and only then submit reports, building workflows according to the rules of logic rather than traditional corporate bureaucracy.
The use of expense cards for employees brings the following benefits:
1. Real-time expense tracking. In the traditional approach, remote employees and contractors accumulate documents and periodically send them to the accounting department. This creates a certain time lag that distorts the information in the reports. Cloud-based platforms like Wallester.com enable you to use interactive dashboards that are updated in real time rather than static reports.
2. Support for all forms of employment. Employee expense card issuing is a unique opportunity to provide freelancers and contractors with access to a corporate account without violating control and security rules. Cloud platforms allow you to automatically approve typical transactions and reject all others that require mandatory manager approval.
3. Multifunctionality. Corporate cards can be used for other purposes, even for contractual payments. This makes them a truly indispensable financial management tool for large corporations with a branched structure and complex employment patterns.
4. Flexibility on an international scale. The Wallester Business platform is ahead of the competition because it supports multi-currency accounts and offers built-in currency exchange tools. Moreover, it allows you to open virtual cards with the necessary settings in minutes, which is convenient for companies operating abroad.
Let’s Talk Strategy: Creative Ways to Roll Out Expense Cards
Expense cards for employees are the exact opposite of bureaucracy. Therefore, the process of their implementation does not have to be just another procedural task in the development and expansion of the company.
You can make them part of your corporate culture:
1. Organize a virtual party to celebrate the launch of a new payment instrument. This is an excellent opportunity to build teamwork and strengthen ties with external contractors. Part of the party can be a test drive that will demonstrate the benefits and capabilities of such a financial solution.
2. Gamify training. To make the process more enjoyable and compelling, you can launch challenges, such as holding competitions in categorizing expenses and correctly using a corporate account. Another option is a hackathon in which employees will try to circumvent restrictions. This will increase the level of trust in the system and help you improve security measures.
3. Create engaging guides. With a large portion of your team working remotely, traditional training methods may not be effective. Instead, you can create engaging videos by inviting creators or using artificial intelligence.
4. Add a feedback loop. New business approaches always cause difficulties and resistance. To minimize them, you should set up a system for receiving information about the efficiency and convenience of work processes. Be open in your communications with employees, regardless of their form of employment.
Conclusion
Employee expense cards are a great way to maintain the flexibility of modern forms of employment, ensure complete control over expenses, and increase the efficiency of work processes. They allow you to drill down to the analytics of a specific transaction, create clear calculation rules, and, if necessary, approve individual transactions in real time.
Platforms like Wallester Business make it easy for businesses to issue and manage expense cards, ensuring seamless operations regardless of team setup. By adopting expense cards, companies can save time, improve transparency, and empower their teams to focus on what matters most—delivering results. With the right tools, managing employee expenses becomes effortless and gives businesses another competitive advantage.
