The use of purchasing cards in organisations is fast becoming the accepted method of paying for day-to-day and once-off organisation purchases. One of the questions prospective users ask is, “will we not be opening up the company to fraud and abuse on the card?” This is a valid question to the uninformed, but could not be further from the truth, Ian Hendry, Nedbank Purchasing Card Solutions, tells SmartProcurement.
In reality, purchasing cards come with excellent controls, such as spend limits and limitations on the suppliers where purchases can be made. Online portals and daily data feeds provide visibility on purchases going through and ensure seamless integration back into the organisation processes.
With these measures in place organisations using a purchasing card programme have better visibility of where purchases are made. This increased visibility is a huge deterrent for fraudsters.
In the rare instance where fraud takes place, organisations are able to act quickly and decisively to apprehend the offending party.
Purchasing cards lend themselves to high-volume purchases of low value, where the cost of processing a purchase order can be many times the value of the purchased item.
Ian Hendry designs tailormade purchasing card solutions for clients of Nedbank, a leader in the issuing of purchasing cards in South Africa, and will be present at the Smart Procurement World Conference in November at Gallagher Estates to explore this interesting topic further.
