Credit Card Feature

Use the Credit Card feature to reconcile the credit card charges from your credit card company with the expenses entered in Vantagepoint that were paid with the company-issued credit cards.

After you enable and configure the Credit Card feature:

• The employees who are responsible for reconciling credit card statements create the statements in Vantagepoint and import the credit card charges from a credit card company into them.
• On expense reports, employees (the cardholders) can add a charge that they made with a company-issued credit card by selecting the charge from a list of imported charges on the Expense Report form. Only the charges that they made are included in the list.
• You can set up alerts to notify employees that imported credit card charges that apply to them are ready to add to an expense report.
• When you enter an AP disbursement, you can specify that the vendor invoice was paid with a credit card rather than a check or electronic payment.
• The employees who are responsible for reconciling credit card statements: clear the imported charges that have a matching posted expense report or AP disbursement transaction in Vantagepoint; identify and follow up on missing credit card charges; and when all charges are reconciled, they close the statement.

Settings

You enable the Credit Card feature by company, for the appropriate companies in your enterprise.

To turn on the Company Paid feature for expense reports, set Allow Company Paid Expenses to Yes in the Advanced Options section of the Options form in Settings > Expense > Options.

To turn on the Credit Card feature, set Enable Use of Credit Cards to Yes on the Options form in Settings > Cash Management > Options.

To set up primary credit cards and associated secondary credit cards that are issued to employees, use Settings > Cash Management > Credit Cards. You also enter content and formatting information for the credit card charges import file.

To display user-defined fields in credit card reconciliation and credit card review, use the Import tab in Settings > Cash Management > Credit Cards. In the Import Detail grid, for each user-defined field that you want to show, select the Display in Review/Reconciliation check box.

Alerts

You can set up alerts to notify employees about imported charges in the Expense folder in Settings > Expense > Alerts:

• New Credit Card Transactions Available: This alert notifies the appropriate employees when a new credit card charge that they made has been imported into Vantagepoint, and it is ready to add to an expense report.
• Past Due Credit Card Transactions: This alert is sent to employees and, optionally, their supervisors after a certain number of days has passed without the imported expense being posted on an expense report.

Credit Card Reconciliation

In Cash Management > Credit Card Reconciliation:

• You create credit card statements and import charges from your credit card company into the statement.

  You can create a credit card statement in Vantagepoint before the actual credit card statement is finalized by your credit card company. This allows you to import credit card charges into Vantagepoint on an ongoing, regular basis throughout the month as your credit card company posts the charges and makes the information available to you through their website. This allows employees to add imported charges to their expense reports in a timelier manner.

  You import charges for a primary credit card, which includes the charges for all the associated secondary credit cards.

• The imported credit card charges are matched automatically with the credit card charges that are posted on employee expense reports and AP disbursements.
• The charges that have a matching imported charge and posted Vantagepoint expense report or AP disbursement charge can be cleared automatically by Vantagepoint, or you can clear them manually.
• You identify the credit card charges that have not yet been entered in Vantagepoint, and when all charges are reconciled and cleared, you close the statement.
• If you use cash-basis accounting, you can create a cash-basis journal entry for all the cleared company-paid charges on a statement that is completely reconciled

Processing Credit Card Expenses in Vantagepoint

You record expenses that are paid with company-issued credit cards in the following places in Vantagepoint:

• On an expense report in My Stuff > Expense Report: If you import credit card charges into Vantagepoint for a credit card, the charges made by an employee that have been imported display in a list on the Expense Report form. Employees add the imported charges from the list to an expense report. After an imported charge is added to an expense report, it displays in Credit Card Reconciliation. If you do not import credit card charges into Vantagepoint, employees enter expenses that they pay with company-issued credit cards as they normally would on an expense report by specifying that the expense is company paid and which credit card it is associated with.
• As an AP disbursement in Transaction Center > Transaction Entry > AP Disbursements: You enter an AP disbursement and specify that it was paid with a company-issued credit card (rather than a check or electronic payment). After the disbursement is posted, it displays in Credit Card Reconciliation.

Credit Card Review

In Cash Management > Credit Card Review, you can enter criteria to search for and view credit card charges that were imported into Vantagepoint from your credit card company and charges that were entered on expense reports and as AP disbursements.

Using the Credit Card Reconciliation Application Without Using the Import Feature

It is possible to use the Credit Card feature without importing credit card charges into Vantagepoint. In this scenario, the posted expense report and AP disbursement credit card transactions display automatically in the Credit Card Reconciliation application. You manually compare and reconcile these with your paper credit card statement. You choose whether or not to import charges on a credit card by credit card basis.