10.2 Configuring Corporate Card Programs: Payment Options, Transaction Files and Accounting

The published objective is Manage Configure Corporate Card Programs. Card setup decides how charges reach employees as expense items, who pays the issuer, and how the liability is accounted.

Programs, company accounts and issuers

A corporate card program is the agreement between your company and a card issuer. You may have a global program with one provider, or several regional ones. Set up the pieces in this order:

1. Card issuer, on Manage Corporate Card Issuers: the site and payment details, including a default payment method.
2. Corporate card program, on Manage Corporate Card Programs:
   • Card Type: Travel or Procurement;
   • Card Brand: for example Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club or American Express;
   • Upload Rules: file format, Card Number Format (for example Token for Visa) and the employee matching rule.
3. Company accounts inside the program, each representing part of your organization:
   • the card issuer;
   • the payment currency and payment terms;
   • Payment Due From (the payment option);
   • the Expense Clearing Account;
   • optionally Allow multiple billed currencies, so charges in other currencies are converted with GL daily rates.

Corporate cards belong to a company account. If an employee moves to an organization under another company account, you create the card again.

Getting transaction files in

Supported formats. Expenses no longer loads files containing full card numbers. Card numbers must be masked or tokenized:

Card administrators see only tokenized numbers. For Amex, the full numbers behind the tokens come from a GL1210 report sent to your Amex mailbox. With encrypted card numbers, include an employee ID in each transaction, or it is rejected.

Connectivity:

• Visa, MasterCard and Diners Club files arrive on an HTTPS or SFTP server that you or a third party host.
• The program's upload parameters hold the server profile and file name prefix.
• PGP encryption can protect Visa, MasterCard and Diners Club files. It doesn't apply to American Express.

Upload. Schedule Upload Corporate Card Transactions (upload and validate) from the Corporate Cards work area.

• Valid transactions become expense items, including eFolio hotel details.
• Invalid ones wait on Review Corporate Card Transactions for the card administrator to correct and validate again.
• Employees can receive email notifications for new card charges (system option Enable Notifications for Credit Card Charges).

Creating cards automatically

Choose an employee matching rule for new cards on the program's Upload Rules tab:

• Employee number (most common);
• Name and employee number.

The first transaction for a new card then creates the card and assigns it to the employee. If no match is found, the card stays unassigned.

Perform employee matching across all business units finds employees outside the company account's business unit. That is useful with the simplified CDF3/VCF4 setup: one global company account number, without company account, issuer or processor numbers. Oracle calls manual creation in Create Corporate Card the exception. That dialog box also holds the maximum amount per transaction and per billing period, which apply only to procurement cards.

Who pays the issuer

A company can mix options by region or organization, for example Both Pay in the US and Individual Pay in the UK.

Oracle's accounting example

The report has 500 USD cash, 650 USD card business and 299 USD card personal expenses. The issuer billed 949 USD.

Company Pay issuer payments

Create Corporate Card Issuer Payment Requests runs only for Company Pay, and at any time. It doesn't wait for expense reports, because the goal is to pay the issuer on time.

1. It writes one invoice header per card, with each transaction as a line charged to the expense clearing account, into the Payables Open Invoice Interface.
2. It calls Import Payables Invoices.
3. Tax isn't processed on these requests.
4. Rejected records, for example from a closed period or an invalid payment method, are removed from the interface for reprocessing.

The clearing account is relieved when employees' reports are processed. Related accounts:

• Employee Liability Account, a system option: use the Payables default or a business-unit value, used when cash is due to the employee;
• Corporate Card Issuer Payment Liability Account, set in Payables.

Travel (centrally billed) cards

A travel card, also called a ghost card or business travel account, is one card number for a company or business unit, used for airfare, hotels and car rental. Upload it with Account Type = Centrally-billed card, and pay it with Create Corporate Card Issuer Payment Requests.

Usage policies, inactive employees and errors

• Corporate card usage policies, on Manage Corporate Card Usage Policies, set a cash limit per expense category, with warning and error tolerances. For example, with a 100 USD car rental limit and 5% and 10% tolerances, cash over 105 warns and cash over 110 blocks submission. The auditor and the manager are notified of violations. With no limits, cash of any amount is allowed.
• Inactive employees (terminated, or on unpaid leave): process their charges with Process Inactive Employee's Corporate Card Transactions. Managers can be allowed to submit them. The Inactive Employee Grace Period in Days system option (default 0) keeps charges posted after the inactive date.
• Validation errors include an inactive card, an inactive employee, an invalid billed currency (it must match the company account's payment currency), and invalid card numbers. Fix them and validate again.
• Disputes recorded in Expenses don't resolve anything. Employees must contact the card provider.