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Accountants know all too well the pain of credit card expense management and reconciliation, especially when they need to rely on broken bank feeds.
That’s why we built real-time credit card feeds - a simpler and more efficient way to streamline your credit card expense management without depending on direct bank feeds for your business credit card expenses.
How are Real-Time Feeds Better Than Direct Bank Feeds?
Real-time credit card feeds bring transaction data into your expense management software when your card is swiped at a POS by connecting directly to card networks like Visa and Mastercard. This eliminates the dependence on banks, reduces back-and-forths with employees, and speeds up the reconciliation process.
On the other hand, direct bank feeds connect to your bank account to bring credit card transactions into the accounting software daily, weekly, or monthly. While most SMB accounts may not have access to bank feeds, the ones that do often suffer from delayed, unreliable, and broken feeds. This leads to slowed reconciliations and lags in financial reporting.
Why Should Businesses Move Away From Direct Bank Feeds?
With direct bank feeds
- SMBs do not get programmatic access to transaction data, and most times, they do not qualify the bank's requirements. This means you cannot access your transaction data, forcing you to download CSV or Excel files from the bank portal and manually upload them, which makes the process more labor-intensive.
- And if you do qualify, the setup process is laborious. It involves offline authorization involving the bank, customer, card network, and expense management vendor. This could take 2-3 weeks for every customer.
- Once setup is complete, the transaction data comes in only after settlement, which happens 24-72 hours after the credit card has been used.
Direct bank feeds are also known to be inaccurate and broken. This can lead to several problems like:
- Delayed reconciliations: Since it takes time to receive credit card transactions, it affects how quickly accountants can reconcile them, leading to late payments and difficulty in tracking spend.
- Inaccurate financial forecasts: The precision of your financial forecasts depends entirely on how accurate and timely your expense data is. Delayed and faulty data can lead to inaccurate forecasts and poor decision-making.
- Higher risk of fraud: Fraudulent expenses can slip through as it becomes more challenging to track and monitor due to delays in access to transaction data.
But with real-time credit card feeds
- You don't need to wait on banks for financial data. You get instant access to your credit card transaction data regardless of your bank partner or credit card program.
- Unlike direct bank feeds, setting up real-time feeds is simple. Your employees can enter and verify their Mastercard / Visa card details in minutes and spend data flows in immediately.
- Connecting directly with credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard lets you get credit card transaction data the moment the spend is made. You bypass all the issues with direct bank feeds and get access to real-time transaction data on your existing credit cards.
With instant receipt tracking and automated reconciliations, manual effort is eliminated. This frees up your employees to focus on their work while you can close your books on time. Additionally, you also benefit from:
- Automated reconciliations: As the transaction data flows in instantly and expenses are reconciled automatically, you can save time, eliminate human errors, and track spend easily.
- Accurate forecasts: As your transaction data is accurate and up-to-date, you can make more informed decisions and optimize your forecasts for better results.
- Reduced fraud: With access to instant transaction data, you can detect fraudulent transactions and catch unauthorized spend the moment it happens, ensuring no financial leaks.
Why Fyle’s Real-time Credit Card Feeds Are Better Than Direct Bank Feeds
Fyle is a modern expense management software with real-time card feeds on your existing credit cards. We integrate directly with Visa and Mastercard, so you don't have to rely on your bank partner or your card program. With Fyle, you can stay on top of your expenses, manage receipts, reconcile spend, eliminate fraud, and make better financial decisions in real time.
How Fyle’s Real-time Feeds Compare Against Direct Bank Feeds For Your Everyday Tasks
1. Receipt tracking
Direct bank feeds make receipt submission and tracking cumbersome.
The current system of waiting for banks to make credit card transaction data available is flawed and can lead to several problems. Employees may lose or forget receipts, which can lead to missing receipts, human errors, and delayed expense report submissions. Accountants have more work to do, as they must manually check credit card statements, send reminders to employees, and follow up on disputed transactions. This can lead to delayed expense reimbursements and the potential for fraud and financial leaks.
Fyle enables easy receipt submission and tracking.
With Fyle, employees get instant notifications of spend as soon as they swipe their credit card while they are still at the point of sale (POS) via Text/SMS. They can reply to the text message with a picture of the receipt, and Fyle will match it to the same expense automatically. In fact, businesses have reported a 48.7% increase in timely receipt submissions using Fyle!
2. Card reconciliation
Direct bank feeds do not support real-time reconciliations.
Depending on your bank account and card program, manual matching must be done when card data is available. This can slow the reconciliation process since it's more error-prone and time-consuming.
Fyle reconciles in real-time with no human intervention.
By connecting directly with credit card networks like Mastercard and Visa, Fyle lets you instantly reconcile receipts with card transaction data. This takes only a few seconds and requires no manual effort from you or your employees.
3. Control and Visibility
Direct bank feeds do not provide information that's up-to-date.
Direct bank feeds are often broken and inaccurate, delaying visibility into your card spend. This means businesses end up relying on outdated and incomplete data to make crucial financial decisions.
Fyle provides real-time and updated information.
Since Fyle directly integrates with card networks, you will gain access to real-time spend data the moment a transaction happens. This can help you better track your employee spend, identify patterns and make better financial decisions.
4. Fraud detection and compliance
Direct bank feeds delay compliance and fraud checks.
With direct bank feeds, identifying fraudulent expenses and unauthorized spend becomes challenging as compliance checks happen only after a few days of making the expense.
Fyle helps you stay policy compliant and protected from fraud.
As transaction data comes in instantly, Fyle can detect suspicious and unauthorized spend and notifies the accountants in real-time. This simplifies fraud detection and helps you stay on top of your card expenses.
5. Closing books
Direct bank feeds delay timely book closure.
Getting card transaction data could take days to weeks with direct bank feeds. This, coupled with delayed receipt submissions, human errors, and manual reconciliations, could lead to not closing books on time.
Fyle enables you to close your books on time.
Fyle simplifies the whole financial process for employees by collecting receipts instantly, automatically reconciling them, and enabling them to submit their expense reports on time. Fyle also integrates with accounting tools, making it easy for accountants to close their financial books, saving time and reducing manual effort.
Further reading:
In Conclusion
With real-time feeds, you can access accurate and up-to-date information without changing how you work or switching your existing card program. Schedule a demo with Fyle to learn more about how real-time feeds can streamline your expense management process.
