Sunday, 19 December 2010

How Can A Business Credit Card Help Keep Track of Your Expenses?

Keeping track of records is the life blood of any business. For many small business owners keeping track of business expenses can become an overwhelming task. This means that you need to keep all your receipts and properly categorize each expense. After you categorize your expenses you then need to keep a total for each. In case you are ever audited, you will need all your records in order to prove that your right offs are legitimate. All this work can be very tedious, however, a business credit card can help you keep track of your expenditures without much effort on your part.

The Internet has revolutionized the way we keep track of our lives these days. Most, if not all, credit cards come with an online system than allows you to log on see how much you have charged. Online systems keep track of everything for you automatically. It will categorize your expenses for you as well. If you use your charge card at a restaurant than it will keep track of that expense under the entertainment category. At the end of the year, your card issuer will send you a statement that details all your expenses for that year accordingly. Every time you use your credit card it will automatically keep track of your expenses for you.

Use your charge card for all business related expenses as much as you can. These days, everyone uses a some sort of debit or credit card when they make purchases from anything to a soda to round trip airline ticket. Use your card when ever you have any kind of expense related to your business. Do not worry about charging a small amount. Use your credit card for any amount purchase that is business related. Business card providers take care of most of your accounting work for you if will let them. It is very easy to loose receipts, especially for small purchases. You avoid any chances of loosing the receipt by charging on your business charge card.

Most credit cards will also work with your accounting software. In other words, you can download your card statement from your issuer and import everything into your Quickbooks or Microsoft Money accounting program. Once you have downloaded the data your accounting software will then properly categorize each expense for you. Most accounting programs that run on today's personal computers will determine the expense classification based on where the expense was made. For example, if you make a purchase with your charge card at Office Max, your accounting software should automatically categorize that expense for you under office supply expense. If it does not recognize where the transaction was made the system will ask you what expense category you want to use for that purchase. It will than remember next time under what category you used when the software comes across the same expenditure again.

What other benefits does a credit card offer?
Use your business card as much as you can whenever you are making business purchases and your life will become a lot easier. In addition, many business credit card providers feature cards with great reward offers that can make your life easier as well. Reward points can then be used to make purchases such as gift certificates, cash back discounts, or even airline tickets to the destination of your choice.

Lastly, use your business credit card to its maximum potential and you will not only save money but increase your productivity as well. Keeping track of petty cash receipts can become very cumbersome for any business. Receipts can easily get lost or torn before they ever make it back to their proper filling place. All this can be avoided by using your charge card to make whatever purchases you need to make. You can then quickly download all your expenses from your online account to accounting software such as Quickbooks Pro or Microsoft Money. Lastly, always remember to always use your business credit card responsibly.

Todd Holliday is an avid writer who enjoys subjects such as apply for a credit card and cash back credit card offers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Todd_Holliday

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