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Reduced Costs, Efficiency and Control through Corporate Cards

by Giel Buijssen, Assistant Application Management, Rockwool

In 2008, Rockwool introduced ING’s Corporate Card Solution for employee expenses in order to increase convenience, control and process efficiency. This article considers some of the factors that contributed to our decision, shares some of the experiences we have had, and outlines the outcomes and benefits of using the ING Corporate Card Solution.

Project background

Before implementing ING’s Corporate Card Solution, Rockwool employees could receive a fixed salary advance to fund business expenses, or could obtain cash in various currencies from a cashier’s department before embarking on business travel. Employees then accounted for their expenses by completing a manual declaration form and refunded surplus cash back to the cashiers. Cash stocks were then periodically inventoried by two people to check balances.

There were a number of limitations in this arrangement. Many different currencies needed to be stocked, and the process of issuing and refunding expense amounts was labour-intensive, prone to error and difficult to reconcile. There were often disputed amounts that needed to be investigated and the forms process was cumbersome for employees.

Adopting a card solution

As a result of these challenges, we made the decision to change the way that we managed employee expenses processes with a view to reducing errors, disputes and the risk of fraud, increasing convenience and automating processes. We were already aware of the opportunities that corporate cards offered, and benchmarked the available offerings. We chose ING as our provider based on the quality of the existing relationship that we have with ING and the ability to integrate the corporate card programme within our systems. Besides this the ING solution is cost-effective and provides considerable flexibility.

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