Card FAQs
Funding
Under the concurrent payment model, funds from your virtual account are used to pay for the card transaction after authorization.
Under the periodic payment model, Tipalti may permit you to pay for card transactions in the aggregate at the end of a mutually agreed payment period. The spending limits in this model depend on an underwriting process. Please contact your Tipalti rep for more information.
Yes. Tipalti Card is international, USD-denominated card and can be used outside of the US.
The funding process for the concurrent payment model is precisely the same as other payment methods. Ensure you always keep sufficient funds in your Tipalti balance so transactions won’t be declined.
Card management
Tipalti Card are international, USD-denominated cards that can be used both in the US and outside of the US.
No. After you issue a card to an employee, they will receive an email from us that includes a link to their card details.
We create an employee list based on the info of your existing Tipalti Hub users (including bill approvers). We can add many more employees - or your entire org chart - if need be, at no additional cost (assuming they weren’t assigned any other roles in Tipalti). These users don't receive any communication from us unless you issue a card for them.
Please submit a request to our Support Team if you wish to add more employees to the Card product.
Yes, we offer physical cards at no extra cost. In Tipalti Hub, under the Cards tab, you can create new physical cards by clicking the ‘Add new card’ button and then selecting ‘Physical card’ in the popup.
Controls
Each card has a preset budget. We use it to apply thresholds that prevent overspending and notify budget owners and the Finance team of the need to adjust the card budget when necessary. By default, we block transactions that exceed the card’s budget by 15%. You can change this setup on the “Card settings” screen.
Yes. For example, we currently don't block a card issued for "Vendor A" from being used at Costco. However, when reviewing the transaction in the "Transactions" tab, you can see both the "Payee name" (the merchant assigned to the card during setup), and the "Merchant name” (the merchant that actually charged the card), as a way to monitor that the card is being used properly.
Automation
When a card is charged, Tipalti sends an email to the cardholder asking them to provide a receipt. Cardholders are asked to send the receipt to receipts@tipalti.com so that we can collect the receipt documents, just like we do with invoices. Once collected, the receipt is scanned via AI Smart ScanAI Smart Scan is a tool that reads scanned invoice images or PDFs and extracts the details, which are used to populate the fields on a bill. and matched against the card transaction automatically, thus reducing the need for manual review of the submitted receipt by your AP team.
You can fully automate the coding process so that the preset values for the card are populated into every transaction, and the transaction is posted into the ERP without requiring Finance review. This functionality is especially good with recurring expenses and subscriptions that you don’t want to review every time again and again.
Yes. By default, the threshold for receipt requirement is $75 (in line with IRSInternal Revenue Service requirements). You can always change/ disable the policy in the “Cards settings” page.
Yes. The coding on the card is used as the default for all of the card’s transactions. However, you can always change the coding fields as part of the review process of each transaction.
ERP sync
Tipalti Card can be reconciled to any ERP.
Card transactions are posted as Bill+Payment records after they are reviewed and marked as complete. See our Process transactions page for further information.
Yes. When a transaction status changes to “Completed” it individually syncs into the ERP as a Bill+Payment (2 separate records).
Currently not supported.
User management
There are 3 permissions for the Card product:
- View cards - Users with this permission see all cards and all card transactions.
- Create cards - Users with this permission can create new cards and update/ cancel existing ones.
- Process transactions - Users with this permission can update the coding of card transactions and mark them as “completed” (which triggers a sync to the ERP).
Pricing & Cashback
The card product is free of charge, and its permissions don’t require additional costs.
Yes. Please contact your Tipalti rep for more details.
Invoice-backed payments
Yes, you can participate in the Pay Bills by Card program while still issuing and using Tipalti Card for receipt-backed spending, such as travel expenses and subscriptions.
Payments made on your behalf to payees as part of the Pay Bills by Card program are not connected to your Tipalti credit line. Instead, pay bills by card payments behave as any other AP payment that comes directly from your Virtual Account per payment when it is due. This has no impact on your credit available for other spending via cards.
The cards used to pay bills by card are single-use virtual cards that are canceled as soon as the payment is placed. These single-use cards can’t be viewed or managed in the Tipalti Hub. Each single-use card has limited validity and the payee is prompted to process the payment before it expires.
The single-use cards are issued with ‘Tipalti’ as the cardholder.
The pay bills by card payments only include invoices that have already been through the bill approval flow and are ready to be paid.
No, the card payments from pay bills by card don’t create a card transaction that you need to attach receipts to or review. They show as regular invoice-backed payments on the payee’s activity tab and on the Payment history page with Tipalti Card as the payment method.
Cashback rates for pay bills by card payments can differ from the cashback rate received for spending on cards issued by you in Tipalti.
If you use Tipalti Card and are also taking part in the Pay Bills by Card program, you’ll see the cashback received in two separate credits, with two separate emails. Your pay bills by card cashback emails with details are sent every month on the 10th and cashback is transferred directly to your Tipalti Virtual Account.
For more information on invoice-backed card payments, go to the Pay bills by card FAQs.