Credit card as job requirement

TES

Our company has numerous marketing positions requiring in-state travel. We have previously provided a company-guaranteed credit card for employees who cannot qualify for such a card based on their personal credit history. After being burned several times by employees who run up charges on the card and quit or are terminated, leaving us to pay the bill, we are considering making the ability to qualify for a credit card a requirement of these positions. Does anyone know if we can ask an applicant whether they have the means to pay their own travel expenses until they are reimbursed (i.e., have their own credit or debit card)? Can we actually add that requirement to the job description?

Gillian

What are you going to do when you want to hire a whiz-bang salesperson and this person says - I am philosophically opposed to using my credit card for your expenses?

cebudragonlady

Two more points to ponder: If you do this, you might want to specify a certain dollar amount of credit.Obviously someone with a $ 300 credit limit could not travel so much as someone else with with a $ 10,000 limit. Second, be sure to
reimburse right away upon submission of expense report/receipts. The employee
doesn't want to get burned, either.

Chari

Parabeagle

Chari raises an IMPORTANT point. Most of us in my office travel frequently all over the country, but we do not have corporate credit cards. Our accounting dept. has established a practice of reimbursing our costs for airfare and other big ticket expenses within 24 hours of purchase. After we return from our trip, we are reimbursed within 24 hours of completing our expense reports. TIMELY REIMBURSEMENT IS CRITICAL!!!!

HS

First thing I would do if I were you TES is to hire a company who does credit checks. We do credit histories on all positions requiring travel as well as higher level management positions. Within our application process we have a form, with a disclaimer from the company that does our employement / education / criminal / credit checks, allowing these tasks to be performed.

If you're not planning on dispensing credit cards anymore, or will have a waiting period attached, you can tell the applicant that all expenses for (insert list here) will need to be paid by you (the employee) up front and reimbursed to you (at whatever date). Some companies have the airline and hotel rates paid for up front thru their finance department and then require all other expenses; i.e. meals, tolls and car rentals being paid by the employee to be reimbursed later.

From what I understand, you have to have a credit card to rent a car...and if that's the case, you can say to an applicant what expenses they are responsible for up front. It could go something like this, "Ms. Jones, you will be required to pay for (expenses list) up front and will be reimbursed (pay date). Car Rental places require a credit card to reserve vehicles. Do you have any concerns regarding our expense policy?" Or something to this effect. This way you've let them know up front what is required.

A little long winded, sorry. Good luck!

Rockie

WE don't allow anyone but senior managers to have company credit cards. If they are not trustworthy, we never should have hired them in the first place. Everyone who works for us has to pass a pretty stringent background check, but we don't run a credit check unless they actually handle money for the corporation.

A person who routinely travels for the company is, most probably, an executive level. They should have use of a credit card. Anyone in our company that uses a credit card is required to turn in the receipt to the controller whenever a purchase is made. She then matches up the credit slips to the card when the bill comes in. This is a pretty good check and balance.

Most employees that go out and occasionally buy for the company just use their own funds. We try to reimburse very quickly (a few days) upon a properly received receipt.

Trinity

We handle the credit card dilemna a little differently. The three main officers (President, Exec. VP, VP of OP) have business credit cards that they use for various business expenses. However, these are high balance cards and I, as the person in charge of training and such, have the credit card numbers so that when employees need to travel for training , sales, etc. I make their travel arrangements ahead of time, using one of the company cards. You can make flight arrangements online nowadays, and hotels will allow you to fill out a Credit Card Authorization form and fax it to them ahead of time, allowing them to charge the room to your company card, without the employee having to have the card with them. And we allow them to get cash out ahead of time to pay for meals, cab, tips, etc. which they have to bring receipts back for. In this way, our employees really don't have to pay for anything, and accounting can keep track of expenses better.