The Emburse Cards team is excited for you to get started. This quick start guide covers the basics from an admin or owner point of view. Non-admin or non-owners only see their own cards and transactions, not all cards and transactions.  

Cards

Manage cards for all members from the Cards section of your account.

A card with a black stripe is a physical card and a card with large pixels is a virtual card.

Admins control all aspects from this section of the account, including creating a card, editing card settings (restrictions), and suspending or canceling cards. Search by card description or last 4 digits, and filter by any status, category, location, or custom fields.

Funds are tied to your account, not each individual card. The allowance of an individual card can exceed the balance of your account. If the balance of the card is $0, the card will be declined.

Individual card (Accounting)

Click a card to find billing information, budget, and accounting categorizations. The virtual card below has a description of Conference Card. Virtual Cards do not require a person’s name. A virtual card description can be anything from a team, event, or any budget line item. Physical cards will have the first and last name of the assigned user embossed on the card.  

Assigned to: designated owner of a card. A specific owner of a card is not required for shared expenses (team meals, subscriptions, etc.).

Billing address: company’s HQ address. 

Expense category: pre-categorize cards to reduce reconciliation. Code all transactions on card with an expense code that matches your chart of accounts. Helpful for cards with a narrow purpose – e.g. transportation, meals, etc.  Change codes on a transaction basis.

Custom fields: tailor your cards, transactions, and members with other tags (e.g. department, company code).

Card Spending Restrictions & Expense Policy

Restrict any card by dollar amount with daily or transaction limit, set an end date, and select merchants where card can be used. Update any restriction in real time. 

Amount

There are four modes of amount restrictions: Budget, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly.

A budget is like a prepaid gift card. If "For single use" selected, it means the cards cancels immediately after it's used the first time and is useful for one-time purchases (flights and conferences).

End date

Set an end date for the card to restrict the last date the card can be used. Please note this is not an expiration date. Once an end date passes, the card is automatically suspended and it can be reactivated later which is useful for budget controls.

Merchant Restrictions

Restrict spending to select merchant categories.

Expense Policy

Automatically enforce expense policies on cards. Require receipts for any expenses over a specific dollar amount and require categories for expenses with cards tied to a specific department or location.

Transactions

Filter transactions by date, amount, card, member, category, location, and any custom fields. This is helpful to determine what employees are spending and enforce budget controls. For example, you can see how much an employee spent on transportation related to a specific project in the last 30 days. 

Click into a transaction to see all it's details. Add notes to keep track of important information and upload or download a receipt related to the transaction. 

Use the Expense Policy controls to locate transactions that are missing receipts or require review or other action items related to tasks. The checkmark icon indicates if a transaction has a receipt uploaded and the X icon indicates the transaction is being disputed.

Accounting: Export Transactions

Automatically sync expenses into QuickBooks Online, Xero, Intacct, or NetSuite using the Chrome Extension. Saves time because you no don't need to manually download and upload bank statements. The Extension also does smart matching on categories and other accounting fields from Emburse Cards.

Export all transaction data, including expense categories and custom fields, in CSV or OFX format to add transactions to any other accounting platform. View or download a PDF statement with a beginning and ending balance too.

Bank Accounts

Connect one or more bank accounts to fund your Emburse Cards account. Once connected, it serves as a secondary bank account with all funds held in an FDIC insured account. 

View past transfers and schedule a new transfer from any connected bank account. Any cards will draw from the balance in your account. Ledger balance includes pending transactions, while available balance only includes transactions that have posted. 

Set a minimum balance around 25% higher than your anticipated weekly spend. If your balance is low, Emburse Cards will automatically pull from your default connected bank account to replenish your funds and meet the minimum balance. This can be done once a week or every day.  

All ACH transfers typically take 3 full business days. If you need to withdraw funds, cancel a scheduled transfer, or rush a transfer, please contact Support by submitting a support request here.

Questions?

Please check out our other support articles or contact Emburse Card Support.