10 Ways to Prevent Late P-Card Reconciliation

Pandemic or not, a common recurring P-Card problem is late reconciliation of transactions by cardholders and/or their managers. Because they fulfill key control roles, holding them accountable is always a best practice, but you do not want them to resent the card program. Help them—and your program—be successful by taking the following 10 actions. However, even though diverse strategies will help, they are not foolproof. There should still be consequences for non-compliance; suggestions are offered below.

Related content: A review of the key control roles.

Strategies

1. Stress the importance—how the process defends against fraud—from the start and annually.

2. Create separate training on how to reconcile (for cardholders) and approve transactions (for managers). Avoid mixing this content in with the initial training on P-Card policies and procedures. It is better to wait until a new cardholder uses the card or, for managers, the first time they need to perform the approval task.

3. Enhance your training efforts by making five-minute “how to” videos available on your organization’s intranet. If you have Windows 10, there is a built-in feature for recording your screen, so you can capture the steps.

4. Improve the reconciliation process. How can you make it easier? Do they have mobile access, if need be, to perform their respective tasks? Do you appoint proxy reconcilers for cardholders who are not routinely at a computer, if applicable?

5. Establish default accounting/budget codes for each cardholder’s transactions, so they only have to change a code if it is incorrect for a particular purchase. As an added bonus, default codes help the accounting process. You can push through any transactions that are not reconciled by the designated deadline (and make departments responsible for initiating any needed corrections).

6. On your intranet, publish a list of reconciliation deadlines for the year. Make it prominent and include a link to instructions for what they should do if they know they’ll be out on a particular deadline.

7. Get it on their calendars. Send an annual recurring meeting invitation that reminds them of each deadline in the year ahead.

8. Email a reminder to cardholders and managers a day or two prior to each deadline.

9. Make transactions available for reconciling as soon as they post to a P-Card. This is typically a given if the process occurs within the issuer’s technology. However, at some organizations, cardholders reconcile transactions via the ERP system, so the availability is dependent on the frequency that transactions are uploaded into it. A daily upload can help.

10. Implement automatic email notices to cardholders each time they have one or more new transactions to reconcile. The availability of this feature will depend on your issuer/the technology used.

Consequences

Possible consequences for repeat offenders (however your organization defines “repeat”):

  • Mandatory refresher training

  • An internal chargeback to the offender’s department—hitting their budget can get their attention

  • Email to the offender’s manager/VP

  • A “ding” on their job performance review

  • Temporary card suspension or permanent card closure/cancellation

It is critical that card suspension/closure is not viewed as a good thing. It should be notably more cumbersome for departments to acquire goods and services using a non-card purchase-to-pay (P2P) process. Make P-Cards desirable.

Finally, never delay payments to the card issuer due to late reconcilers/approvers. Payments should be a separate, independent process.

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About the Author

Blog post author Lynn Larson, CPCP, launched Recharged Education in 2014. With 20 years of Commercial Card experience, her mission is to make industry education readily accessible to all. Learn more…