Keeping on top of company spending isn’t always easy, especially when you’re juggling multiple teams, projects and payment methods. From everyday expenses to team travel and client lunches, it can quickly get tricky to track where money’s going and who’s spending what.
Fortunately, corporate card services are here to make it much easier for you to manage day-to-day business expenses securely and efficiently – and they’re not doing it alone.
There are countless tools and platforms on the market designed to complement corporate card services, offering everything from accounting integrations to travel management, and even cashback perks.
In this article, we’ll explore corporate card services, different types of tools that support and enhance them and how they can help your business gain better visibility and simplify spend management for good.
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Key takeaways:
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What are corporate card services?
Corporate card services are platforms and tools that enable businesses to issue, manage and monitor company payment cards for employees.
Modern corporate card services go far beyond simply providing a payment method. They’re often paired with powerful software that streamline the entire spend management process.
From physical and virtual cards to spend controls, real-time transaction tracking and features like instant expense categorisation, receipt capture and automated approvals, these services make it easier for companies to manage day-to-day business expenses securely and efficiently.
By replacing clunky manual processes with smart, connected tools, corporate card services give finance teams greater control, visibility and insight into company-wide spending.
And it doesn’t stop there. A growing ecosystem of complementary services and software has evolved to enhance corporate card usage, covering everything from accounting integrations and travel expense management to employee perks and corporate rewards.
If you haven’t explored what today’s corporate card platforms and their supporting services can offer, now’s the perfect time to take a closer look!
Corporate card issuers
Before we get into tools to complement corporate card services, let’s get the obvious out of the way: corporate card issuers supply physical and virtual payment cards designed specifically for company use. They’re all about keeping business spending under control and giving them a secure, flexible way to handle everyday expenses and team purchases.
As we mentioned above, modern corporate card issuers cover far more than just handing out cards. They offer built-in tools to manage spending limits, track transactions in real time and link payments to expense management platforms.
The result? Less manual admin, faster approvals and better visibility over where company money’s being spent.
1. Pleo
With more than 1,480 five star reviews, Pleo is Europe’s most loved and trusted spend management platform. From daily business expenses to software subscriptions, Pleo gives you instant visibility of all your company spend.
With Pleo’s smart company cards (physical and virtual), spending is easy – whether you’re paying for business travel, employee or project expenses or subscriptions. Pleo's analytics dashboard offers detailed reports on spending patterns to help you identify trends, monitor budgets and make informed financial decisions.
And with real-time tracking, easy categorisation of expenses and automated expense reporting, your finance team can keep up with expenses as they happen – no need to worry about overspending.
Accounting software integrations
When it comes to managing business spend, keeping your accounts in order is just as important as controlling day-to-day expenses. That’s where accounting software integrations come in. By connecting your corporate card service directly to your accounting platform, these integrations make it easy to keep financial records clean, consistent and up to date.
Accounting software integrations help automate the flow of data between systems, from syncing transactions and matching receipts to categorising expenses and handling reconciliation. The result is faster month-end close, fewer manual errors and clearer financial visibility for your business.
2. Xero
Xero is a cloud-based accounting platform designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s known for its clean, user-friendly interface and strong ecosystem of integrations, including with corporate card services. When connected to a platform like Pleo, Xero automatically imports card transactions, matches them with uploaded receipts and categorises expenses based on your chart of accounts.
You can automate reconciliation, simplify VAT/GST tracking, and manage real-time expense reporting – all of which help speed up month-end processes and improve financial accuracy.
3. Quickbooks
QuickBooks (particularly QuickBooks Online) is another popular cloud-based accounting solution tailored to small businesses and growing companies. It offers a wide range of features for invoicing, payroll and financial reporting with direct integrations for corporate card platforms like Pleo.
Through these integrations, card transactions can flow straight into QuickBooks where they’re automatically categorised and reconciled against your accounts. Receipts uploaded via your card platform get attached to transactions in QuickBooks, making audits and expense tracking much smoother.
Employee perks and benefits
Employee perks and benefits cards are flexible payment solutions that let companies offer staff allowances, stipends or rewards in a simple, controlled way. Whether it’s for wellbeing budgets, home office equipment or lunch allowances, these cards give employees the freedom to choose how they use their perks whilst keeping spend within set limits.
Backed by dedicated platforms, these services make it easy for finance and HR teams to manage budgets, track usage and stay tax-compliant – all without the admin headaches of traditional employee benefits schemes.
4. Ben
Ben is a flexible, all-in-one employee benefits platform designed to help companies offer personalised, impactful perks without the admin headaches.
The platform combines benefits management, payments and employee engagement into a single system, allowing HR and finance teams to streamline their processes with features like automated benefits administration that adapts to existing workflows and AI-powered personalisation to connect employees with relevant benefits.
5. Hoppier
Hoppier is a virtual card platform designed to enhance employee engagement and streamline the distribution of perks and rewards. The platform enables companies to send customisable stipends and rewards to employees worldwide and offers virtual visa cards usable in over 60 countries.
Control spending categories, vendors and timeframes, get unspent money refunded and see when and where cards are being used with real-time tracking and reporting – Hoppier makes employee recognition, event gifting and global perks distribution a breeze.
Travel and expense management
Managing corporate travel and expenses can be a hassle – but it doesn’t have to be. Travel and expense management platforms simplify the entire process, from booking trips to tracking costs and processing reimbursements.
Travel and expense management tools centralise bookings, manage itineraries, track expenses on the go and automate approval workflows. They also integrate with corporate card services to automatically capture and categorise card transactions, match them with receipts and keep spending in policy, making reconciliation faster and reducing manual work for finance teams.
No more juggling spreadsheets, chasing receipts, or manually reviewing claims – these platforms help you stay on top of travel plans and spending in one streamlined system.
7. TravelPerk
Travelperk is the perfect solution for booking corporate travel and managing and reporting travel spend – all in one place. It makes booking flights, hotels, trains and car rentals easy whilst providing travel policy compliance tools and real-time expense tracking.
And here’s the best part: TravelPerk integrates with Pleo to make business trips plain sailing. Use your Pleo card to make your booking on TravelPerk, and automatically reconcile your expenses and invoices in one place – wherever you are.
8. Navan (formerly TripActions)
Navan (formerly TripActions) is a next-generation corporate travel management platform designed for businesses looking for flexibility, automation and real-time control over their corporate travel. It simplifies the management of business travel expenses, providing finance teams with the tools needed for efficient and compliant operations.
The platform combines a slick, user-friendly experience with tools for managing everything from booking trips for employees and execs to creating company travel programmes and arranging team offsites.
Corporate rewards and cashback services
Who doesn’t want to get more value for their money? With corporate rewards and cashback services, your business can. These services offer rewards, rebates or cashback on company purchases made through corporate cards, helping businesses stretch their budgets a little further.
Whether it’s earning cashback on travel bookings, software subscriptions or everyday expenses, these programmes turn routine spending into tangible returns. Some platforms also offer point-based reward schemes or tailored discounts with partner merchants, giving companies more flexibility in how they benefit. It’s a simple, effective way to make business spend work harder – with perks for both the company and its employees.
9. Pleo
Not to toot our own horn again, but Pleo offers cashback, too! With our cashback programme, you can earn up to 0.75% cashback every time your team spends with Pleo. Get cashback up to the value of your full Pleo subscription price, including fees for any additional users.
Whether it’s off-setting your Pleo subscription cost or re-investing in ad spend, you’re in control of how to maximise the value of your rewards – your cashback, your choice.
What to look for in a corporate card service tool
The tools we’ve covered in this list tackle different aspects of managing company spend, from issuing cards and setting spend limits to integrating expenses with your accounting software, booking travel and offering cashback rewards. Together, they help finance teams take control of company spending, reduce admin and improve oversight.
When it comes to choosing the right corporate card service and complementary tools for your business, here are a few essentials to look out for:
- Ease of use: A corporate card solution should be simple and intuitive for both employees and finance teams. Whether it’s issuing a virtual card in seconds, tracking transactions on the go or reviewing spend reports, user-friendly platforms will save everyone time and reduce errors.
- Seamless integrations: The best corporate card services work hand-in-hand with your existing systems – like accounting software, expense management tools, payroll and travel platforms. Look for providers that offer native integrations or open APIs to keep everything connected and minimise manual work.
- Real-time control and visibility: Instant transaction notifications, custom spend limits and real-time reporting help you stay on top of company spending as it happens. Choose tools that make it easy to monitor spend by team, category or individual card.
- Value for money: Compare what different card services and tools offer for the price. Consider not just upfront costs but the long-term benefits, too – e.g. time savings, better financial control, cashback rewards and improved reporting.
Ultimately, it’s about finding a combination of tools that fit your workflows, support your business goals and make company spending easier to manage for everyone.
Final thoughts
And there you have it – a round-up of tools and services designed to make managing company spending simpler, smarter and more transparent. Whether you’re after a flexible corporate card issuer, seamless accounting integrations or extra perks like cashback and rewards, there’s a solution (or a smart combination of them) to suit your business.
As business spend becomes faster, more digital and more distributed across teams and locations, having the right mix of tools in place isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s essential. Time to build a corporate card setup that puts you in control and keeps your business moving.
