Payhawk Business Credit Card Review


Updated: December 13, 2024
Matt Crabtree

Written By

Matt Crabtree

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Which spend management solution offers the greatest benefits to control spending and support cash flow in your business? Payhawk is easily a contender for this accolade.

Payhawk now provides a leading spend management solution to businesses in the United Kingdom, offering a range of VISA credit cards and VISA debit cards, depending on the service your small business needs.

In this article, we will review the Payhawk Business Credit Cards on offer for your business, exploring the key benefits of Payhawk’s leading products.

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What Is a Payhawk Business Credit Card?

Payhawk provides businesses with corporate VISA credit cards that are used for business expense management. The credit cards are then distributed to employees of the business so they can pay for expenses when they need to.

Each Payhawk business credit card is connected to an overall corporate expense management software where every expense is recorded in real time. The finance manager will monitor the platform and can place controls on individual cards to aid bulk card management and support business spend.

How Does a Payhawk Business Credit Card Work?

A Payhawk business credit card is linked to accounting software and contributes towards expense reporting. Also known as company credit cards, Payhawk credit cards possess their own spending limits and credit card balance.

Once issued, an employee will use corporate cards in the same way they will use their own personal debit and credit cards. Typically used as a virtual card, the employee will upload the Payhawk corporate card to their mobile phone digital wallet and implement contactless limit transactions when required.

No personal credit checks will be made for the employees as these credit cards are not for personal expenses. Individual or team cards can be issued for making business payments and managing expenses.

After each transaction, the user will download or take a photo of the receipt and then upload the proof to the app. The finance team will immediately view the expense transaction to monitor budgets and create spending forecasts. 

Are There Different Types of Payhawk Business Credit Cards?

Your business can choose from several Payhawk business credit card packages:

1. Premium Cards

Payhawk Corporate Premium Card

Payhawk Corporate Premium Card
Credit Limit
Up to £500k
Representative % APR (variable)
N/A
  • Physical and virtual credit cards.
  • EUR and GBP accounts.
  • Up to 6x better exchange rates than banks.

Corporate cards with built-in spend rules and automated receipts collection.

Features:

  • Credit limits up to £500,000
  • Physical credit cards
  • Virtual credit cards
  • Unlimited transactions
  • Unlimited users
  • Automated receipts
  • Set spending limits
  • Cardholder mobile app
  • Real-time notifications
  • Live chat support
  • Incorporate with Apple Pay or Google Pay
  • Integrate with accounting applications, such as Xero and QuickBooks

The Premium Corporate Card from Payhawk can offer credit limits of up to £500,000, with interest rates customised for the business.

You can provide employees with physical credit cards or virtual credit cards, whichever your business or employee prefers. An unlimited number of users can be issued with corporate credit cards and an unlimited number of transactions can be made.

When using the system, spending limits can be set and automated receipts make recording expenses simple. Cardholders can incorporate with Apple Pay or Google Pay and access the mobile app when using their credit card. 

Additionally, seamless accounting software integrations, such as QuickBooks and Xero web-based accounting software, can be incorporated with the system to save time and increase accuracy.

Both the app and the system receive real time notifications when transactions are made and if you have any problems, live chat support is consistently available.

2. All-In-One Spend Cards

Payhawk All-In-One Spend Card

Payhawk All-In-One Spend Card
Credit Limit
Up to £500k
Representative % APR (variable)
N/A
  • Local invoice payments and reimbursements.
  • Pre-accounting OCR in 60+ languages.
  • Free transfers within SEPA and the UK.

Integrated financial stack to control cards, invoices, payments, and cash.

Features:

  • All features of the Premium card comes as standard
  • Reimbursable expenses
  • Invoice management
  • Subscription tracking
  • VAT recovery integration

The Payhawk All-In-One Spend Card option comes complete with all features presented by the Premium Cards in addition to some further easy to use elements.

Your business can easily reimburse expenses to employees when accessing the All-In-One Spend package, in addition to managing invoices and other documents.

You can track subscriptions with ease and mark bills as ‘paid’. Furthermore, additional integrations are available, such as VAT recovery integration with 60dias.

3. Enterprise Cards

Payhawk Enterprise Card

Payhawk Enterprise Card
Credit Limit
Up to £500k
Representative % APR (variable)
N/A
  • International invoice payments and reimbursements.
  • Group spend dashboard and workflows.
  • Success-based onboarding flow.

Enterprise grade solution designed for companies expanding internationally.

Features:

  • All features of the Premium card and the All-In-One Spend card comes as standard
  • Dedicated account manager
  • Online onboarding session
  • Multi-entity management
  • Enterprise connectors
  • Enterprise authentication

The Enterprise card package is perfect for the larger business, with all features of the Premium and All-In-One Spend card package included.

Your business will receive a dedicated account manager when accessing an Enterprise card package, accessing an online onboarding session to ensure all users of the system can get the most out of the card features.

In addition, multi-entity management is available for large enterprises, and you can integrate enterprise connectors such as NetSuite, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Further integrations are available with enterprise authentication with SSO and SAML.

What Other Services and Products Do Payhawk Offer?

In addition to corporate credit cards, Payhawk offer a variety of services for businesses:

VISA Debit Cards

If you want to use the excellent features of Payhawk’s corporate cards and spend management system without using credit and entering a debt cycle, you can use VISA debit cards instead.

The debit card will be loaded with money in advance so that when a transaction has been made, the business’s money is being used. The same transaction notifications, control features and expense admin abilities are still applied through the software.

Expense Management

A particular service offered by the Payhawk software is the ability to create business budgets and to offer expert insight with real time data. Payments and subscriptions will never be left unpaid, whilst automated AI suggestions can help you and your accounting data.

Accounts Payable

The accounts payable process can be automated by the Payhawk software, processing invoices automatically and reducing the time taken on admin tasks, reducing manual data entry tasks. Furthermore, invoices in 60 languages can be decoded accurately by the system.

Is Payhawk Safe?

Payhawk is a well-respected spend management software provider that is used worldwide by plenty of businesses. Unfortunately, Payhawk is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) as this is an e-money financial product. 

Payhawk Global Spend
Image: Payhawk

Your money is protected in another way called ‘safeguarding’, however, so you should receive your money if Payhawk ever goes bust. Balances are maintained separately from other cash under the safeguarding method.

How Much Will Payhawk Cost?

The cost of using Payhawk varies from business to business with each pricing plan determined on a customised basis. A member of the Payhawk team will determine the best package for your individual business and your unique requirements.

The price you will pay for Payhawk services will depend on the size of your business, the features you need, and your business budget.

Is a Free Trial Available?

Payhawk offers a free trial so you can determine whether you want to purchase the package. You can also schedule a demo to visualise how the Payhawk system would work for you. 

Sign up for a free 5-minute tour of the Payhawk spend management platform and assess whether this is a viable system for you.

What Is Included in a Payhawk Package?

When signing up to Payhawk, you will receive a full expense management system with GBP, EUR and USD payment account abilities. The system itself is web-based so your finance team can access the portal from any location and at any time of the day or night.

You will also receive the mobile app which can be uploaded individually to your employees’ mobile phone devices, in addition to VISA credit cards or VISA debit cards that can be distributed to each member of the team. You will receive plastic cards as well as virtual credit cards.

Depending on the package you choose from Payhawk, you could also integrate additional software, such as accounting software.

This adds a significant benefit to your business as every expense transaction made with the VISA credit and debit cards will be automatically uploaded to your accounting data records. This saves you time instead of manually entering each transaction into the accounting system, and additionally increases accuracy so you know your accounting records are reliable.

Who Can Apply for Payhawk?

Any business can apply for a Payhawk expense management system and VISA credit and debit cards for employees as long as your business is incorporated in relevant locations. Acceptable locations include the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Economic Area.

As well as businesses, educational institutions, government bodies, and non-governmental organisations can utilise Payhawk into their systems.

Where Can I Use a Payhawk Business Credit Card?

Businesses based in either the UK or the US can receive VISA credit cards from Payhawk that are accepted worldwide. Just check that VISA is accepted by a retailer first. 

Your employees can use Payhawk business credit cards to pay for accommodation and car rentals when travelling on a business trip, in addition to other expenses.

Businesses outside of the UK and US can only access Payhawk VISA debit cards or prepaid cards.

What Is Payhawk Green?

Payhawk Green is a new initiative available for businesses to track and monitor carbon emissions and help ESG reporting. You can automatically manage carbon emissions on all card spends with a carbon calculator as well as being able to export CO2 reports. 

These features aim to help your business to manage and reduce its environmental impact, positively impacting climate change.

Using Payhawk Green for your business saves you time and ensures you can implement carbon accounting effortlessly, ensuring that you manage your business’s carbon footprint meticulously.

Payhawk Green is a free addition to all Payhawk plans and can help your business automatically meet your sustainability goals and monitor your environmental impact.

At a Glance, Pros and Cons

Are you ready to gain a clear overview of the pros and cons of using Payhawk?

Pros

✔️ Multiple cards — Distribute multiple cards to your employees.

✔️ Eliminate petty cash — All expense transactions are electronically recorded instead of using cash or reimbursing employees.

✔️ Software system — Company expenses are recorded and transacted from company funds, combining company cards across the enterprise and incorporating software integrations.

✔️ Global — Payhawk offers their spend management system and corporate cards to the UK, USA and some areas of Europe.

Cons

❌️ Prices — With no standard pricing fees, identifying how much Payhawk will cost your business is difficult. A custom pricing plan is required.

❌️ No FSCS protection — As an e-money product, Payhawk does not offer users Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection.

❌️ Spending platform — Payhawk is firstly a spending platform and does not offer stand-alone credit card services.

❌️ No more lines of credit — Payhawk used to offer a line of credit to UK and US businesses although this service is no longer provided.

Payhawk Business Credit Card: Final Thoughts

Payhawk cards are a great choice for your business if you are looking for a software system that combines credit cards for employees. As a customer success specialist, Payhawk will provide you with a personalised pricing structure that is tailored to your business.

Project related spending is recorded as you customise your employee spend, with many businesses issuing Payhawk VISA credit or debit cards for their employees to manage expenses.

As a Payhawk customer, you can access key features and Payhawk services such as accounting integrations and budget creation.

Related Guides:

FAQs

Can I use Payhawk for company spending when I have a small team?

How can Payhawk business credit cards help my business?

What extra features can Payhawk offer?

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