Corporate purchasing cards (or supply cards, P- card) are credit cards issued to domestic consumers or users of the procuring entity. Such maps can be combined with the technologies used for e-commerce and data processing, which allows procuring entities to receive important information.
Supply cards are used primarily to reduce administrative costs and cycle time for shopping cheap, non-core, non-production supplies and services. For owners of these cards set monetary limit and a list of preferred suppliers with whom Procurement Department has negotiated the prices and services. P- card automate many types of work, and thereby eliminate the need to send purchase orders and separate accounts and ensure prompt payment to suppliers after two or three days as opposed to thirty days in the conventional system . Due to the transfer of the procurement in the user departments reduces cycle times and lower procurement costs of processing transactions. In addition, buyers exempt from the daily purchases of cheaper goods and services and can concentrate on purchases of more strategic products and supply chain management issues.
At first glance, the main risk associated with it is the loss of control. Managers need assurance that such cards are given to those people to whom it is permitted, and that the purchases will be made in the preferred suppliers. In response to these concerns, organizations using such cards, responded establishment of control mechanisms that are: 1) determine the point of sale, to meet the asking purchase the maximum cash limit set for this type of card, 2) limit the number of trades executed per day, 3) limits the value of a transaction, and 4) to determine whether the purchase of the selected supplier.
Although the structure of the retail accepts purchase cards around the world, industry suppliers more slowly incorporated into these programs. However, the potential for operational payments and increase the volume of transactions and encourage industry suppliers are increasingly switch to this type of interaction with customers. Available data indicate that while most industries payment via P- card is a very small percentage.
Most modern programs work with such cards able to: 1) track and report in a separate report information on taxes on the sale, which is necessary for auditing purposes, and 2) to identify situations where the supplier was the owner of the minority interest, and 3) to consider the information for each product type, and 4) to determine at what cost center should include costs associated with a particular purchase, 5) to work with different types of purchases, including business travel, entertainment and vehicle costs.
