Every crisis produces lessons learned. As your organization transitions back to normal or a “new normal,” it is valuable to document your experiences while they are still fresh in your mind. What worked well? What were the challenges? Note what you would do differently and why, and then seek buy-in for making changes to the Commercial Card portion of the business continuity plan (BCP). To further put things into perspective for decision makers, the evaluation could also include a table of card program metrics comparing the business continuity efforts to normal, pre-pandemic business operations. For example, specify:

• the percentage increase or decrease in the number of active cardholders—were cards in the right hands?

• how card spend limits and MCC restrictions were adjusted to accommodate the situation

• any increase to the average monthly number of declined transactions (and why)

• the percentage increase or decrease in monthly card spend, along with a breakdown of the spend highlighting categories that went up and what went down

Use the lessons learned to update your business continuity needs assessments that you communicate to your card issuer. See key questions to answer when conducting needs assessments for different types of disasters.

Finally, the Commercial Card evaluation should be combined with a broader evaluation of the purchase-to-pay (P2P) process challenges during the pandemic, such as paper invoices and check payments. Where could cards have been used but were not? This is a great opportunity to push Commercial Cards into the limelight.

Related Resources

Visit the disaster planning and recovery page for more insight, including blog posts on the nightmare of tracking cancelled business travel during the pandemic and what your BCP might have missed.

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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…