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The first version of Cape Spend helped businesses issue cards to team members, assign spending limits, and get visibility over employee spending.

With the latest release, which just dropped in all Cape customer accounts, you can do so much more…

What’s new with Cape Spend?

Imagine a world where instead of drafting a formal expense policy and hoping employees follow it, you had a corporate card that applied this policy automatically. 

We’re turning your expense policy digital with customised spend controls. Say goodbye to paper expense policies that don’t get followed, non-compliant spend requests, and out of policy spend slipping through the cracks. 

Automated spend controls mean you can choose the types of business expenses your employees can and can't use their Cape cards for.

Happy to shout your employees' lunch, but not so keen on picking up the tab on those Friday beers? Easy. Just add a card rule to turn off bars and pubs, and keep cafes and restaurants active. 

Running a tight ship? We hear you. In addition to setting rules on where your employees can use your corporate cards, you can set limits on how much they can spend and how often. 

With Cape Spend, you can limit: 

• Maximum spend per transaction
• Maximum spend per day, week, or month 
• Total number of transactions per day, week, or month
• Allowed spending by merchant category

Decide what rules you want to apply, we’ll set them up, and you’re good to go. Any future cards you order for employees will have your rules applied automatically. 

What is best practice for controlling card spend?

Here are the steps we suggest you take to set effective spend controls for your corporate cards:

• Define a clear policy: A corporate credit card policy should outline the approved expenses by category and spending limits for each cardholder. It should also include information on the reporting and reimbursement process and any consequences for misuse of the card.
• Assign spending limits: You can set spending limits for individual cardholders, helping ensure that expenses are within budget and reducing the risk of fraud or misuse.
• Set spend controls: Corporate card software, like Cape, lets you set up spending limits, establish spend category rules, and automate the enforcement of your policy with a one-time setup. 
• Establish a reporting process: You should put a reporting process in place to regularly review and reconcile expenses incurred on your corporate credit cards. This helps you catch any discrepancies or unauthorised charges and address them in a timely manner.
• Monitor card usage: Regular card usage monitoring helps you ensure the card is used appropriately and within the established policy. You can do this by reviewing expense reports or monitoring transactions from your spend management dashboard. 
• Implement fraud controls: Fraud controls such as two-factor authentication, real-time alerts, and transaction monitoring can help you detect and prevent the unauthorised use of corporate credit cards.
• Provide training: Finally, it's important to provide training to your employees on your policy, the approved expenses, and the reporting process. This helps ensure everyone is on the same page and reduces the risk of misunderstandings or misuse.

Ready to start controlling spend with Cape?

Call us, and we'll discuss your policy and set it up over the phone. Once set up, you'll see your active policy when you login to your Cape account under the new Spend Controls page.

Disclaimer: While we're in Beta, you can create one set of rules for all cards in your company. In the future, you'll be able to create individual rules and policies for each card or team. We'll continue to adapt and improve this feature as we go.