American Express Corporate Card

[littleroc02us]

I was just going to say from an employer standpoint, I would be concerned for employees abusing or re-imbursing personal matters IE gas, flights, food, hotels on non-work related areas. I can imagine it'd be more of a higher liability or seen as more overhead for debt to that business name. But on the plus side, I can only imagine it's easier to manage charges from those those accounts down to the departments. Then again i'm no accountant.

So as an employer your basically saying you don't trust the people you hire then, but your employee should trust that you will pay their bills for them?

[littleroc02us]

LOL I'm in the similiar boat for cashflow. If that EF ? was for me, yes I have my 6mo EF set aside, while keeping a few thousand in short term saving tied to checking at credit union. For security/protection I prefer using CC for all bills whenever possible.

But then again, I don't expect everyone to have an EF or have access to large cashflow like others on here. Going back to personal CC/rewards reasons, a few years ago my co-worker purposely flew to further layovers on flights, to build up mileage. Our employer didn't mind since he was actually saving them on certain flights being cheaper. He traveled a lot for certain projects, and enjoyed upping his flyer miles, and didn't mind the extra time length overall. I wouldn't do that, but just a different perspective on benefits I suppose.

So as an example I would have to use my own personal EF fund to cover expenses not paid as an employee of a company for doing my job? Crazy talk!

[cypher1]

So as an employer your basically saying you don't trust the people you hire then, but your employee should trust that you will pay their bills for them?

Luckily I'm just an pion in IT who isn't paid to think I'm just saying from an employer standpoint, I would be concerned of any kind of abuse with a corporate credit card for personal use. Same thing for locking down permissions for certain file shares concerning confidential/sensitive data to certain workgroups, instead of sharing to Everyone within the corporation. Or granting everyone as full administrators on our production servers and "trusting" they won't do anything wrong.

Instead of my rambling, yes, as an employee I trust my employer will re-imburse my expenses I file, whether from personal or corporate CC used.

[littleroc02us]

Luckily I'm just an pion in IT who isn't paid to think I'm just saying from an employer standpoint, I would be concerned of any kind of abuse with a corporate credit card for personal use. Same thing for locking down permissions for certain file shares concerning confidential/sensitive data to certain workgroups, instead of sharing to Everyone within the corporation. Or granting everyone as full administrators on our production servers and "trusting" they won't do anything wrong.

Instead of my rambling, yes, as an employee I trust my employer will re-imburse my expenses I file, whether from personal or corporate CC used.

I am in the IT field also, but the way we run permissions is a supervisor submits a form to the server ops team giving the employee under them rights to a folder share, it's the same thing as my boss handing me the company card and going out to pay for an Imac repair at First Tech. He trusts me as an employee, he has even given me the cc number for payment of Ontrack Data Recovery. Trust of you employees should be first and foremost. Otherwise why would you hire them.

[cypher1]

So as an example I would have to use my own personal EF fund to cover expenses not paid as an employee of a company for doing my job? Crazy talk!

As Jpg and I were pointing out, by having an EF in general, I am comfortable doing expense reports and allowing a delay (has never happened yet) in receiving my re-imbursement as long as fill out my expense in a timely manner. Now as others mentioned, if I submitted my form, and 1-2 months come by with no refund, then yes, I'd be upset. Not because I didn't have the money to pay the bill. But just on principle that I usually receive within first week, let alone 2 if manager approved late.

[jpg7n16]

So as an employer your basically saying you don't trust the people you hire then, but your employee should trust that you will pay their bills for them?

So as an employer, you're saying that no one ever falsifies expense reports, or charges things they normally wouldn't because 'it's the company's card, not mine', and there shouldn't be safeguards in place to double check that expenses were legitimate?

It's a very good safeguard to the company that employees charge personal expenses while doing business work themselves and submit the expenses for approval (ie. hotel costs, food costs, etc.). That way there is an added verificiation step. Expenses of the business should not be made by the employees personal funds. For instance, buying office supplies. That should never be done with personal funds.

People who will have to submit their expenses for review before reimbursement are less likely to make unneccessary charges than people who just put it all on the company's card and don't have to worry about it.

Plus, what about the risk that an employee will make a bogus charge with the card, and then file bankruptcy so you have no recourse against them?

For someone so against risk, you seem to feel that the employer should take a lot of it. Employers have to manage risk too.


and I am an accountant

[littleroc02us]

Now as others mentioned, if I submitted my form, and 1-2 months come by with no refund, then yes, I'd be upset. Not because I didn't have the money to pay the bill. But just on principle that I usually receive within first week, let alone 2 if manager approved late.

Exactly my whole point is that you always have to consider the what ifs. That's why American Express has the Liability agreement, because it does happen and must enough for them to include that section. Companies do default and it comes down to the card holder's responsibility.

[cypher1]

Exactly my whole point is that you always have to consider the what ifs. That's why American Express has the Liability agreement, because it does happen and must enough for them to include that section. Companies do default and it comes down to the card holder's responsibility.

Well when the time comes for my employer to default (at anytime), then I'll be more worried about my employment position/paycheck than an expense report for $200 certification taken once a year.

[littleroc02us]

Well when the time comes for my employer to default (at anytime), then I'll be more worried about my employment position/paycheck than an expense report for $200 certification taken once a year.

Understandable, it just seems like a lot of people do the "It will never happen to me" type of thing... That's the risk you take I guess.

[ea1776]

On a different note, anyone use rewards on corporate AMEX? I travel a lot for work so I spent the $60 one time charge for rewards activation. Hopefully it'll pay for itself quickly. Please share your experience with it.

[Slug]

On a different note, anyone use rewards on corporate AMEX? I travel a lot for work so I spent the $60 one time charge for rewards activation. Hopefully it'll pay for itself quickly. Please share your experience with it.

It's just a slightly less lucrative way to do what I've already discussed in terms of credit card rewards. You have to charge enough to offset the $60 charge in rewards. I'm not familiar enough with the AMEX rewards program to know how quickly one could recoup that. I benefit by not working for a Fortune 500 company who has a relationship with AMEX so I get to use my personal cards meaning I can maximize rewards across them for Marriott points, 5% at restaurants, etc...

On a another note, if my company had a pattern of delaying payment by a month or more, I would be going ape-sh*t with HR.

[snafu]

As an employee, I loved using my CCs for travel as benefits accrued to me. It didn't take much effort to work out the reimbursement cycle. I always had the option of filling out miles of paperwork and making wild guesses about expenses which included currency exchange for a travel 'advance.' When I returned, I would need to submit my actual costs and complete an Excel showing anticipated and actual costs in minute detail.

Since I knew the CC billing cycles, I used the most appropriate CC with the longest time line between charges and payment due. I rarely had to pay all the charges before being reimbursed.

I always felt I got the best deal

[toboramai]

i love my corporate amex. i charge between 5k to 15k a month depending on my travel schedule. im responsible for paying the bill but my company reimburses me quickly and the points i earn are great un-taxed income.

as a note, corporate amex lets you pay 30 days late without incurring late fees.

[dbstylee]

never make a late payment on AMEX, they will cut your line so fast it will make your head spin

[ambitions2o]

Actually about that Corporate AMEX....


I have one through my company and am critical about my credit score. So I decided to call AMEX and speak with them about this. I was informed (and has been confirmed) the Corporate Card does NOT affect your credit report even when you first go into collections. AMEX knows who/how these cards.

Being late on a payment for your personal card is different than being late on your corporate card.

On top of it, I have had my card for nearly 2 years and never had a problem.