Commercial and Purchasing Card Questions

Questions about how corporate, purchasing and government cards differ from consumer cards, and what accepting each actually costs.

Corporate, purchasing and government cards: how they differ from consumer cards and what accepting them costs.

What this category covers

This category covers how corporate, purchasing and government cards differ from consumer cards, and what accepting each actually costs. The answers are written to give you the structure of the decision - what has to be true, who decides it, and what to get in writing - rather than a single number that stops being accurate the moment your volume or card mix changes.

Where an answer depends on your own account, it says so and points at the statement line that would tell you. A page cannot know your effective rate, and any page that claims to is guessing.

Why it matters operationally

A purchasing card can cost less than a consumer card or considerably more. The card is not what decides it; the data is.

The cost of getting this wrong is rarely dramatic. It is a few basis points on every transaction, every month, which is exactly why it goes unexamined for years.

Where operators go wrong

Blaming the card type for a cost caused by missing data.
Surcharging a large trade account and losing more in goodwill than the surcharge saved.

0 questions in this category

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What to read next

/commercial-card-processing covers acceptance decisions; the downgrade reference explains what goes wrong.