Retail Business Credit Cards

Working with the retail industry, one of the biggest issues we come across is that each owner makes purchases using their personal credit card. There are a few reasons why this becomes troublesome when tracking financial data: 

The difficulty with tracking purchases 

As the business owner makes purchases using their personal credit card, we want to ensure that these are properly accounted for as expenses. The biggest issue we come across is that owners forget to send along receipts after they’ve made a business purchase on their personal credit card. If the bookkeeper or accountant doesn’t receive this information, then the business suffers. This results in increased taxes being paid because there is no offsetting expense to the revenue-generating activities of the business. 

Reimbursements to owners 

To further compound the issue with difficulty in tracking purchases, we routinely see owners reimbursing themselves for purchases they’ve personally made for the business. While we absolutely want our clients to be reimbursed for business purchases, if they haven’t submitted their receipts for these purchases then we don’t have an offsetting transaction for the reimbursement.  

The biggest issue here is when receipts aren’t submitted by the purchaser, we have an outlay of cash that isn’t tied to anything.  

Be cautious: The result of this is that the business owner may be forced to take an unnecessary dividend, which affects their personal income tax. 

Business credit growth 

Without the use of a business credit card or credit facility, it becomes challenging to grow business credit. As the business grows, additional credit may be needed to facilitate cash flow. This can come in the form of a line of credit or even increased amounts of credit on a business credit card.  

In many instances, we’ve seen banks unwilling to issue business credit cards for one reason or another. The usual two suspects are either it’s a brand new business (and thus they have no credit rating) or it’s a business in a regulated industry (think cannabis, alcohol, gaming, etc). These owners are left with using their personal credit cards. Then we run into the issue mentioned above between tracking purchases and reimbursing owners for them.  

The solution 

At Blueprint Accounting, we are always on the lookout for new and exciting opportunities that can help our clients. We have found a solution for these business owners to manage business expenses without the use of a personal credit card. 

Introducing, Float Financial (floatcard.com). 

Float provides prepaid VISA’s to business owners and has a compelling offer: 

This means that a business owner can set up and fund their Float account easily to manage receipts.  

An added benefit is that users can submit receipts via text and email directly to their Float account and the receipt will attach to the card a purchase was made on.  

A great use case for Float is that an owner could provide a virtual card to an employee where they could then make a purchase online, submit the receipt, and a physical card wouldn’t need to be issued.  

Another great use case is that physical cards can be requested. In the example above, there could be a physical card per store that a store manager or employee could use to go purchase something for that store. Knowing the card is attached to the store, your bookkeeper and accountant can ensure the purchase is associated with that store to give a clear picture of profit per store. 

This is a great example of innovation to help industries where banks are currently lacking.  

You can try Float Financial for free here and use our referral code: brianc0933

If you’re a retail business owner and looking for bookkeeping and accounting help for your store(s), look no further than Blueprint Accounting. We’re always on the lookout to help our clients make more money and understand their financials better. Let’s connect today!