How Business Owners Can Choose a Credit Card

What You Need to Know

Jeremy Zongker

July 23, 2007


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Small business owners now have a wide variety of credit cards to choose from, and it makes it difficult to choose the best one for your small business. As a small business owner, you will need to decide which features you think that the company will use most often, and if they are worth using and having, before applying to a card. Many of the credit card companies now offer many attractive tools that can and will help each small business owner in their everyday spending and tracking. Also remember that it is harder to keep getting credit cards after the first couple, so choose wisely when choosing business credit cards.

Should you pick a business card that offers rewards or miles?

If you have no problem paying off the credit card debit each time the statement comes in, then the point rewards or cash back is the way to go for you. With the cash back and rewards credit cards, they give you rewards for spending money on everyday business needs, which is money you are going to spend anyway, so why not be rewarded for it. Another option to consider when choosing a credit card is the travel reward and miles credit cards. Do you or someone in your company travel on a regular basis? Then a travel reward or miles reward card is the type of card you might want to use. Most of the popular airlines have now teamed up with the credit card companies to bring business owners a reward for traveling for business purposes.

Should I get help tracking and reporting your expenses?

Most credit cards that are geared for the small business and even for larger businesses now, have a feature that is attractive in more than one way. The credit card companies can now track the categories that money is being spent on every month, and they can also provide a quarterly or annual spending report. This comes in handy during tax time. If you plan to use the same credit card for all of your expenses, this may be a great option for you.

Do members of your staff need to have access to a credit card?

Most of the credit card companies that offer cards to small businesses have a feature that allows employees of the business to also carry a credit card. This feature helps the business owner and the employee. When the employee travels now, they have the business with them to back them up in case anything should come up. Employees now can keep track of their spending for business related purposes a lot more efficiently now. The credit card companies can also track the credit card expenses separately so there is no confusion over who spent what. Not to mention the reimbursement paper work and waiting will now be eliminated. The credit card companies also allow the owner to set the amount of funds that are available to each card.

Small business owners also need to watch out for credit cards and the rates they charge with balance transfers and also with the APRs. This can be a great asset to a small business owner. Zero percent interest on balance transfers seems to be the going rate right now, and makes it nice to have an interest free loan for a little while, but beware! If you miss one payment you will lose that nice 0% APR and will have to pay the full rate.

Credit cards have changed so much over the years. They are very helpful to the business owners and their employees. Most credit card companies have now done away with the yearly fees that used to be associated with owning a credit card. So, if you are a business owner that pays the balance every month, these are the types of cards you need to apply for.