Top 5 Commercial Card Posts of 2017

January 22, 2018 Lynn Larson

Did you miss key content (and valuable tips) in 2017? The five most popular blog posts by Recharged Education are provided below. Take a look to see what could help advance your Commercial Card efforts. Judging by the first two, organizations are clearly interested in broadening their card programs.

Getting EAP in the door: Obtain five important points to stress in your business case for an electronic accounts payable/ePayables solution.
Virtual Card acceptance made easy: Learn about supplier challenges and a solution that can help them.
Two Supreme Court decisions: This post from last March pertains to industry litigation, as well as state laws involving surcharging. Speaking of surcharging, there have been more rulings at a state level, most recently in California. See surcharge news past and present...
Danger signs of card misuse: Read about a case of card abuse by an executive and see examples of what your organization should pay attention to.
Newsletters can boost communication: Using multiple communication channels, as well as repeating key messages, are best practices for delivering Commercial Card information within your organization. One option to consider is publishing a newsletter. Acquire guidance to help make your newsletter a success.

As always, Recharged Education will continue to make Commercial Card industry education readily accessible to all through the blog and other online resources. In addition, submit a contact form if 2018 is a year in which your organization could use some external expertise. Recharged Education provides fee-based services, such as customized training, consulting, and content development. Learn more...

About the Author

Blog post author Lynn Larson, CPCP, is the founder of Recharged Education. With 20 years of Commercial Card experience, her mission is to make industry education readily accessible to all. Learn more…

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Use P-Card metrics to keep a program on target.

January 10, 2018 Lynn Larson

Do you ever wonder how other P-Card professionals utilize metrics? What do they track and why? I recently had the opportunity to dig into this topic with industry veteran, Karla DeSimone. With nearly 20 years of program management experience, she has successfully used metrics to drive growth, while also juggling 10 different P-Card programs under the umbrella of the parent company. Keep reading to learn how she met the related challenges through a combination of metrics and communication, and subsequently achieved a $140M card program.

Managing Multiple Programs

Q: Did the parent company require its affiliates to use P-Cards?

A: No. As the parent company acquired additional companies, they allowed these “affiliates” to conduct business as usual—however they saw fit. P-Card usage was encouraged, but was not mandatory.

Q: Many P-Card professionals struggle with the politics of managing disparate programs. What was your communication strategy?

A: My goal was to get them to trust me. I was always in touch and very accessible to them. I provided advice about how they could grow their P-Card programs, including sharing examples and the estimated benefits. I also encouraged the different affiliates to talk with, and learn from, each other.

Program Goals

Q: How did you drive program growth?

A: Each year, I asked the affiliates about their P-Card goals, quantifying them in terms of spend and transaction volume. We then provided quarterly metrics that compared quarter over quarter and year over year, so they knew exactly how they were tracking. Also, the parent company returned 100% of any earned rebate back to the affiliates quarterly.

Q: How did their goals impact the overall program?

A: Based on the collective goals of the affiliates, I made projections five years out and purposely pursued an aggressive contract with the card issuer. When our program was growing significantly, there were times I would use these projections to initiate a new contract before the expiration of the current one, ensuring I was returning the best rates to our affiliates.

Q: What happened if an affiliate did not meet its goals?

A: Because P-Card usage was not mandatory, there were no consequences if an affiliate did not meet its goals. However, there were monetary consequences if the company overall did not meet the contract terms with the issuer, but, fortunately, this never happened. Metrics provided a road map to me and I closely monitored each affiliate’s program. If one was tracking down, I knew I had to recoup that volume elsewhere. Often times that meant revisiting an affiliate that had not yet joined the program or determining how I could get an existing affiliate to utilize the program more.

Q: How did you approach an affiliate that was falling short of goals?

A: In addition to the robust quarterly metrics we provided, mid-year I would make suggestions on how they could get back on track. For example, I might suggest the issuer perform a “vendor match” to see who accepts cards. This allowed us to get a feel for the affiliate’s potential versus their actual card usage. At times this caught the attention of upper management, depending on the potential. Then, at year-end, I would highlight opportunities they could capitalize on in the new year.

Metrics Tracked

Q: Which metrics did you track and how often?

A: On a monthly basis, we tracked:

Transaction counts and spend for the month plus annualized
Average monthly spend
Estimated earned rebate
Large ticket (for which the rebate was lower)
Non-qualifying/non-rebate spend (e.g., rush cards, fraud, etc.)

We also tracked fraud:

Monthly fraud by affiliate and who had the most fraud exposure
Annual fraud percentage by affiliate and for the whole program overall
Outcomes; for example, if all the money was not returned, we called the bank at 90 days to ensure credits were applied, balancing to zero

Q: Were process costs evaluated as well?

A: No, it was not possible for us to evaluate process costs due to the size of our organization and eclectic nature of our company. We did not follow any one process, nor use any one ERP system across all our affiliates. As we bought companies, we allowed them to remain independent and then manage/incorporate their business into our operational management.

Q: What would you report to management?

A: We used a dashboard style (single page) on a monthly basis, which included the following by affiliate and aggregate.

Monthly metrics: Spend, transactions, card count, estimated rebate, and a fraud summary
Card administration: Cards issued, cards canceled, credit limit changes, MCC changes, misc. changes (address, default accounting, name changes), cards reported lost/stolen
Concur administration: Employees added/deleted, policy/rule set changes, approver changes, accounting changes, etc.

Related Resources

Access the metrics section of the website to learn more, including tips for refining or building a metrics plan, how to present numbers/statistics with flair to your management, and more.

More About Karla

Karla DeSimone has been a Commercial Card professional for nearly 20 years. Most recently a privately held publishing company, headquartered in NYC, recruited Karla to implement and manage the operations for their Commercial Card program. Prior to that, she managed a large program for a pharmaceutical company in California. Karla has been selected to speak at many card-related conferences over the years and has been recognized by the industry for her outstanding program management. She is currently seeking new employment opportunities in the card arena. Feel free to contact her at kdvntravels@gmail.com.

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Identify your card program priorities.

January 2, 2018 Lynn Larson

With the start of a new calendar year, there is always a looming question of how you can improve the card program. Fix the pain before you pursue more gain. In my list of 16 annual housekeeping tasks for program fitness, #16 is “identify program priorities for the year ahead.” To help you do this, I have developed a simple (and complimentary) spreadsheet. See below to learn more and access the file.

About the Spreadsheet

It includes 22 program components for you to rate, using an established rating scale.
Automatic counts for each rating are displayed at the bottom.
Components you rate less than “good” represent your biggest opportunities—things to prioritize this year.

As a single page, the spreadsheet offers a quick program snapshot. Consider sharing it with management and developing a related presentation to highlight both program strengths and opportunities. Explain your rationale for each rating and compare your program to best practices.

Download

Finally, if you are seeking the list of annual P-Card housekeeping tasks referred to above, please click here.

What will you pursue first?

*Your card program is waiting*

2017 Contributors

I extend a special thank you to those who contributed to the blog last year:

Mary Schaeffer, AP Now
Nick Babinsky, Billtrust
Doug Hindsley, Card Integrity
JoAnn DeLuna, The BTN Group / Northstar Travel Group
Shanda Goodwin, Heartland Financial USA
Michael Campbell, Radiate Presentation Design
Theresa Blatner (end-user), Southern Company Gas

Please contact me if you are interested in contributing in the future.

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