Help & Assistance

Streamline your procure-to-pay processes

Purchasing cards provide an efficient way of making low-value, high-volumes business purchases. This variety of card has been proven to reduce costs and increase control when compared to traditional methods where processing costs can be high relative to the value of the purchase.

Card payments can reduce the time spent on the procurement of general business purchases such as maintenance, repair & operations.

Using a purchasing card can save you time as the order pre-approval process is avoided and purchase orders are no longer required; removing the three-way matching for goods received.
Your transaction data can then be delivered automatically into Accounts Payable and ERP systems.

Purchasing cards can also replace the need for invoices, as VAT data can be provided as management information reports with your card spend. This is possible with suppliers who are tax capable for Visa transactions.

The key benefits

• Reduces costs by shortening the procure to pay process.
• Allows end users to deal directly with suppliers.
• Increases employee compliance to policies on suppliers and per item costs, by using pre-set spending limits and merchant category controls.
• Reduces the number of vendor invoices that accompany monthly and single payment statements that require processing to the Accounts Payable system.
• Consolidated spend reports enable analysis of cost and suppliers. This can be provided online or integrated with your financial systems.
• Cards can be seamlessly embedded into e-procurement systems as an efficient payment tool.
• Reduces time spent with VAT reclaims where the card is used to purchase from Visa Purchasing VAT-capable suppliers.
• Convenient for staff to use and guarantees suppliers receive payments within 5 working days.

Features and benefits

• Cardholder spend can be controlled by transaction limits and restricted to specific merchant groups.
• Online account management and management information through CentreSuite; real time online account servicing for programme administrators and cardholders.
• Liability Waiver Insurance  (PDF,113.54Kb) protects the organisation from employee card misuse.
• Dedicated customer service and implementation teams.
• VAT reports provided reduce the need for invoices and are accepted as evidence for tax reclaims by HM Revenue and Customs (where appropriate data is received from the supplier)
• Assistance to enable your suppliers to accept Visa payments can be provided by Lloyds TSB Cardnet. Cardnet

VAT capable suppliers - A list of current Visa tax capable suppliers can be found here www.visaeurope.com