Deep Dive: Company Cardholder 101
Using company cards for your expenses in Expensify
Reporting expenses incurred on a company credit card is easy with Expensify.
Step 1: Create your first expense
SmartScan your receipt as soon as you spend money.
- Use the Expensify mobile app to snap paper receipts
- Forward email receipts to receipts@expensify.com
- Drag n drop desktop receipts onto the Expensify web app
Step 2: Merge the receipt with the imported card transaction
Concierge will do this automatically for you, but if not, check out this guide to resolve before you submit. If you only use a company credit card, any remaining 'cash' expenses will need an extra check!
Step 3: Review and submit for approval.
Check your report for violations and required fixes using Guided Review and submit for approval.
It's as easy as that! Here's some answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding company cards:
Do I need to add the card myself or will this be done for me?
Your company admin will let you know what to do here.
Most of the time, company cards are assigned centrally by your company admin. As a submitter, all you will need to do is wait for the card to show up in your Settings > Account > Credit Card Import page and for expenses to begin automatically populating on your Expenses page.
If you are required to add your card to Expensify yourself, this can be done by following this guide.
There are three types of cards that can be found by going to Settings > Account > Credit Card Import.
Company cards with the card and padlock icon are assigned by a company admin. Only the admin can delete* this card.
Personal cards with the plain card icon are added by you. You can delete* this card by clicking the red trash icon.
CSV cards with the spreadsheet icon is a file uploaded by you. This does not auto-update and can be deleted*.
*Deleting a card will remove any Unreported or Open transactions in the account.
When will I see/how can I see my card transactions in Expensify?
Card transactions will begin to show after the card has been assigned to you. Depending on what start date your admin sets, you may also see some historical transactions populate into your account. You'll want to reach out to your company admin for any questions about these.
You can view all transactions associated with a card on the Expenses page (or by selecting "View Expenses" from the Settings > Account > Credit Card Import).
What do the icons mean?
You can tell the difference between imported transaction types by the icon associated with them.
As a brief overview, the icons differ as shown in the image below:
The plain card icon denotes a Personal Card Expense
The card with padlock icon denotes a Company Card Expense
The cash icon denotes a Cash Expense (any expense not imported from a connected card)
The vehicle icon denotes a Mileage Expense
The clock icon denotes a Time Expense
A further calendar icon denotes a Per Diem Expense
What if some expenses are missing from Expensify?
If some of your card transactions are missing, first try Updating the card from Settings > Account > Credit Card Import:
If this still does not download the transactions, follow our troubleshooting guide.
Finally, if none of these avenues work, escalate the issue to your company admin who can attempt to resolve the issue centrally or needed, work through the issue with the Expensify Support team.
What about adding the receipts?
Card transactions are mostly of no use on their own. They should be matched with the receipt you receive when the payment was made.
- SmartScan your receipt as soon as you can - at point of sale, or as soon as you are emailed a receipt!
- Code your expenses - you can do this before or after the SmartScan finishes
- We'll auto-merge imported card expenses
What is SmartScan?
SmartScan is the technology that automatically extracts the data from your receipts. Once that receipt is imported to Expensify, it will initially be noted as a Cash expense, but when the corresponding card transaction imports to your account, the cash receipt, and card transaction will automatically merge to create a Card Expense.
An expense created from a receipt (either a reimbursable expense or an un-merged Card expense) shows on a report with the cash icon on the left and a receipt on the right:
An imported Company Card expense that hasn't merged with a receipt has the card with padlock icon on the left and a green + circle on the right:
An imported Company Card expense that has merged with it's matching receipt has the card with padlock icon on the left and the receipt linked on the right:
Expensify's eReceipts are full digital replacements of their paper equivalents in the US for purchases of $75 or less (as per requirements for IRS Documentation as per Publication 463). This means that if your company allows, you can ignore paper receipts entirely, no typing and no SmartScanning required.
And why don't I have them for my hotel expenses?The IRS will not accept an eReceipt for purchases on lodging, for example at hotels and motels. For more check out this post on eReceipts.
An imported Company Card expense that has imported with an eReceipt has the card with padlock icon on the left and the eReceipt icon on the right:
Why aren't my receipts automatically merging?
Receipts occasionally won't automatically merge with your card expenses. This shouldn't happen if the three steps outlined in the image above are undertaken.
In the event this does occur, check out our merge troubleshooting help document and to manually resolve two unmerged transactions, follow these steps.
To learn more about anything mentioned above, check out the below help documents:
How do I report my company card expenses?
What is Scheduled Submit?
Most users will have Scheduled Submit enabled by their company admin - meaning all transactions will be automatically added to a report and submitted on your behalf by Concierge in line with the company timeframe. If this isn't the case, you can either:
Enable Personal Scheduled Submit for your expenses anyway
Why do I have multiple reports?
When using Scheduled Submit, Concierge will not automatically submit (and approve) expenses on reports which contain Expense Violations. These will be moved to a new report creating an extra report for the current reporting period.
How does my company want them submitted?
Your company admins will have put in place a set of "Policy Rules" that mirror the company expense policy. These will flag as Expense Violations for you to fix before they can be Approved.
Anything that requires an action from you to bring your current expenses in line with the company policy will be flagged in your Inbox.
What does my finance team want from me?
Most finance departments will want all company card transactions submitted with a corresponding receipt merged into the expense, with no violations or confusion about these expenses. (You can always alleviate any confusion by making use of the Expense Comment field or adding a comment at the bottom of the report itself)
They will need to be able to reconcile all of your credit card purchases in Expensify with their monthly statement from the bank. Expensify has a great tool called the Reconciliation Dashboard to help them with this task.
Can I delete Company Card expenses?
It's rare that Company Card expenses should be deleted - after all, every purchase made is usually going to require reporting back to your finance team. The ability to delete and move company card expenses between reports depends entirely on how your admin has configured the Liability.
What is Corporate or Personal Liability?
This is a setting enabled by your company admin which determines whether you can delete your imported card expenses or move them to a different/new report.
If you find yourself unable to delete or move your card expenses, check with your company admin whether they've selected a Liability setting that would allow you to first!
Note: when an Admin updates this setting, it will only update for transactions imported
after the change.
But I have duplicates in my account and I need to delete one of them:
Expensify will detect duplicates as outlined in our Duplicate Detection post.
If you find duplicates have the same icon, check that:
Your company admin has not assigned duplicate cards to you (or they have not reassigned the card to you, meaning Unreported and Open transactions will have been removed, but already reported transactions on Processing, Approved, Reimbursed or Closed reports will remain - becoming the probable cause of duplicates.)
You have not imported the card as both a Personal Card and a Company Card in Settings > Your Account > Credit Card Import
You have not forgotten to merge a Cash and Card transaction before submission.
