Unlock 2x faster month close: Real-time credit card sync over traditional bank feeds

Traditionally, you'd manage and reconcile your company spend by transferring transaction data from your bank to your ERP. This is accomplished through either a direct bank feed or bank statements upload. However, with the increasing pace and scale at which modern businesses operate, the need for optimizations and improvements into how expenses are managed is growing.

More and more businesses have started implementing innovative spend management solutions that automate expense processing and increase visibility over company spending. These solutions can offer significant improvements, but unsurprisingly, they also rely on bank feeds and bank statements to pull transaction data from the bank, as there is simply no other option. And here lies a major caveat.

What's the problem with bank feeds in expense management?

Both bank feeds and bank statement uploads present transaction data with a delay. Bank feeds rely on banks to process and transmit the settled transactions, but from when it was first authorized it can take anywhere from 24 hours to more than several days and often weeks to see a transaction settled. These delays can be quite bothersome during expense reporting, where employees pay with corporate credit cards, as they prevent businesses from keeping track of expenses in real-time, resulting in poor spend visibility.

Regardless of which method is used, managing expenses is both time-consuming and prone to errors, resulting in delays and discrepancies during the month-end process. There just has to be a better way. Enter real-time card sync.

What is real-time card sync and how it compares with bank feeds and statement uploads?

Real-time card sync connects directly to card networks like Visa and Mastercard. In contrast to bank feeds and statement uploads, real-time card sync records card transaction data as soon as a card is used, allowing for real-time visibility over spend and facilitating expense processing.

Below is a table, highlighting the main differences between the three approaches:

Advantages of real-time credit card sync

Real-time credit card sync offers a number of advantages over its predecessors:

1. Real-time spend visibility

Real-time card sync provides immediate access to card authorizatons by connecting directly to the card networks, such as Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. The immediacy of transaction data means that finance teams can see all expenses and generate reports in real time rather than waiting for end-of-month statements.

2. Automated receipt collection

Expense management software can automatically reconcile transactions against receipts. In order for this to work, employees need to attach the receipt to each expense, but often the finance team needs to chase employees to log their expense. With real-time card sync, users receive a notification on their phone as soon as a card transaction is authorized, nudging them to add the receipt while it’s still in their hand. This ensures that receipts are submitted right away and allows the finance team to focus on strategic tasks rather than waste their time gathering and matching receipts.

3. Proactive spend control

Finance teams can have better control over spend. Setting spend policies across the organization ensures that employees love the administrative experience of spending funds, while finance teams save time from chasing, reimbursing, and and withdrawing funds from payroll. The card linking technology also ensures accurate budget management and compliance monitoring, preventing unexpected surprises at the end of the month. With up-to-date information at their fingertips, finance teams can make informed decisions and achieve a continuous closing process.

Modern spend management platforms like Payhawk are already utilizing real-time card sync, on both proprietary cards and linked corporate credit cards. This flexibility enhances control, streamlines expense tracking, and, at the same moment, allows companies to keep their current reward systems. Payhawk users are already experiencing these benefits, enjoying real-time transaction visibility, automated reconciliation, and improved financial decision-making, which boosts overall operational efficiency.

Conclusion

As businesses continue to seek ways to optimize their financial operations and make finance teams more strategic, embracing real-time technology will undoubtedly be a game-changer in achieving timely and accurate financial reporting.

Modern expense management platforms need to constantly improve the services they offer to their customers and align with their needs. By incorporating real-time card sync technology, they can help business get real-time visibility over their spending and improve their financial agility.