Real-Time Credit Card Feeds for Construction

As an accountant, it's frustrating and time-consuming to repeatedly remind field employees, who are always on the move or in areas with limited connectivity, to bring receipts for their card expenses to the back office for reconciliations.

What if there is a solution where receipts are instantly collected and transactions are reconciled automatically, so you don't have to contact your field workers constantly?

We've been doing it for a while with real-time credit card feeds.

What are real-time feeds, and how are they different from bank feeds and statement uploads?

Real-time credit card feeds are card transaction data received directly from credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard without depending on the issuing bank. This data is received as soon as a transaction happens, allowing construction firms to track spend and control budgets, reconcile card transactions without manual effort, and identify fraudulent transactions.

Direct bank feeds connect to your bank account to import transactions into your accounting software daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your card program. Your entire workflow would rely on when you would receive transaction data. This lag, coupled with broken feeds, results in delayed reconciliations, reimbursements, and poor visibility into project spend.

Statement upload is the process of manually uploading credit card statements into your expense management software when it's made available by the bank. This gap between when the transaction is made and when the bank provides the statement leads to delayed reconciliations, inaccurate financial insights, and increased errors. Additionally, accountants may need to repeatedly request banking credentials and MFA codes from owners, which can be time-consuming and frustrating.

Why Choose Real-Time Credit Card Feeds Over Direct Bank Feeds and Statement Uploads?

Benefit	Real-time credit card feeds	Direct bank feeds	Statement uploads
Timely receipt submissions	Field workers are notified instantly to submit receipts as soon as they make a transaction at any POS. Cost codes and cost types can be easily tracked, saving accountants time and effort.	Field workers don't get notified instantly, leading to constant reminders to come by the back office for receipt submissions, coding errors, and delayed reimbursements.	Accountants and project managers must wait until the credit card statement is available, leading to mismatched receipts and error-prone reconciliations.
Reconciliation without human intervention	Receipts are instantly matched to transactions, eliminating manual effort and saving time.	Depending on your card program, you will need to manually match transactions and receipts on a weekly or monthly basis.	Accountants have to manually upload and match receipts only after the bank provides the credit card statements.
Close books on time	Timely receipt submissions from field workers, automated credit card reconciliations, and instant expense report submissions help accountants close books on time.	Delayed access to card spend data leads to delayed reconciliations, reimbursements, and closing of books.	Accountants cannot close books on time as they first have to wait for card statements to arrive. They then need to manually upload, gather and match receipts, resolve errors, and reconcile transactions.
Visibility and financial forecasting	Direct connections to card networks give accountants a granular view of card spend, helping them track budgets, identify spend patterns, and make better financial decisions.	Delayed, inaccurate, and broken data feeds would mean accountants need to make financial or budgetary decisions with outdated or incorrect data.	Delayed delivery of card spend data, and missing information on pending transactions make budget forecasting extremely difficult.
Compliance and fraud detection	Instant access to transaction data helps identify suspicious and unauthorized transactions to prevent fraud and maintain compliance.	Delayed access to transaction data means compliance checks happen only a few days after the expense is made. This makes it harder to identify suspicious transactions and curb fraud.	Accountants get transaction data on a weekly or monthly basis, making it nearly impossible to detect fraud and block suspicious transactions.

How is Fyle different from other Construction Expense Management Solutions?

1. Zero learning curve for field staff

Fyle does not require your field workers, contractors, subcontractors, and clients to be tech-savvy, as all you’d need to do is send a text message to track receipts and submit expenses. With the power of Fyle’s real-time feeds, field workers receive text notifications as soon as a transaction is made, often while they are at the POS with the receipt in their hand. They can reply to the SMS with a picture of the receipt, and Fyle matches it to the correct card transaction automatically. Businesses have reported a 48.7% jump in timely receipt submissions with instant text notifications!

2. Onboard clients as approvers into existing workflows

Fyle's pricing model is based on active users who submit at least one expense report in a month. This means you can easily onboard your clients as approvers into your existing workflows with Fyle at no extra cost. Your clients can view all incoming expense reports and approve them, post which the accountant or the contractor can start the reimbursement process instantly.

3. Advanced project spend tracking

With thin profit margins, it is vital for the construction industry to track every dollar. With Fyle, accountants can track billable expenses for every project with ease. You can assign separate budgets for projects, categories, departments, and cost centers. Alternatively, you can combine budgets like expenses for specific categories that should not exceed a certain limit to particular projects, cost centers, or departments. This enables you to identify where to cut costs, lower risks, and forecast more accurately. Fyle also sends email reminders if expenses are nearing budget caps, ensuring contractors stick to the allocated budgets.

4. Automatic capturing and coding expense information

Fyle's powerful AI engine can automatically track and code submitted receipts, reducing human errors and eliminating manual effort. When on-field employees submit receipts, even dependent fields like cost codes and cost types are automatically assigned.

5. Timely reimbursements

Getting reimbursed on time directly impacts cash flow management, project continuity, and supplier/subcontractor relationships. Fyle helps simplify and speed up the entire reimbursement process, from submitting receipts to approvals, reconciliations, and reimbursements.

6. Automated compliance and expense fraud prevention

As the IRS closely monitors construction project expenses, staying compliant becomes critical for any construction company. Set up complex project rules and policies to detect unauthorized spend and fraudulent expenses even before they are submitted. This helps you stay compliant and audit-ready.

Fyle helps you setup complex project rules and expense policies.

7. Integrations with accounting software

Fyle has powerful bi-directional integrations with NetSuite, Sage Intacct (including Intacct for construction and Sage 300 CRE), Quickbooks Online (QBO), Quickbooks Desktop (QBD), and Xero. You can import data like employees, projects, categories, GL codes, departments, job codes, cost codes, taxes, and more into Fyle while automatically exporting your expenses as bills, journal entries, or credit card charges in real-time. This saves hours of time and manual effort.

Fyle's powerful intergations with accounting tools like Netsuite, Quickbooks, and Netsuite.

In Conclusion

Bank feeds and statement uploads are a thing of the past. Fyle’s real-time credit card feeds are the future of expense management for accountants in the construction industry. Schedule a demo today to know more!

What if there is a solution where receipts are instantly collected and transactions are reconciled automatically, so you don't have to contact your field workers constantly?

We've been doing it for a while with real-time credit card feeds.

What are real-time feeds, and how are they different from bank feeds and statement uploads?

Why Choose Real-Time Credit Card Feeds Over Direct Bank Feeds and Statement Uploads?

Benefit	Real-time credit card feeds	Direct bank feeds	Statement uploads
Timely receipt submissions	Field workers are notified instantly to submit receipts as soon as they make a transaction at any POS. Cost codes and cost types can be easily tracked, saving accountants time and effort.	Field workers don't get notified instantly, leading to constant reminders to come by the back office for receipt submissions, coding errors, and delayed reimbursements.	Accountants and project managers must wait until the credit card statement is available, leading to mismatched receipts and error-prone reconciliations.
Reconciliation without human intervention	Receipts are instantly matched to transactions, eliminating manual effort and saving time.	Depending on your card program, you will need to manually match transactions and receipts on a weekly or monthly basis.	Accountants have to manually upload and match receipts only after the bank provides the credit card statements.
Close books on time	Timely receipt submissions from field workers, automated credit card reconciliations, and instant expense report submissions help accountants close books on time.	Delayed access to card spend data leads to delayed reconciliations, reimbursements, and closing of books.	Accountants cannot close books on time as they first have to wait for card statements to arrive. They then need to manually upload, gather and match receipts, resolve errors, and reconcile transactions.
Visibility and financial forecasting	Direct connections to card networks give accountants a granular view of card spend, helping them track budgets, identify spend patterns, and make better financial decisions.	Delayed, inaccurate, and broken data feeds would mean accountants need to make financial or budgetary decisions with outdated or incorrect data.	Delayed delivery of card spend data, and missing information on pending transactions make budget forecasting extremely difficult.
Compliance and fraud detection	Instant access to transaction data helps identify suspicious and unauthorized transactions to prevent fraud and maintain compliance.	Delayed access to transaction data means compliance checks happen only a few days after the expense is made. This makes it harder to identify suspicious transactions and curb fraud.	Accountants get transaction data on a weekly or monthly basis, making it nearly impossible to detect fraud and block suspicious transactions.

Real-Time Credit Card Feeds for the Construction Industry

In this Article

What are real-time feeds, and how are they different from bank feeds and statement uploads?

Why Choose Real-Time Credit Card Feeds Over Direct Bank Feeds and Statement Uploads?