MasterCard International is partnering with e-payments company Velosant on a system that MasterCard hopes will encourage companies to use its corporate purchasing cards more often and for bigger, more complicated transactions. Earlier this year, MasterCard introduced e-P3, which links p-card transactions to electronic purchase orders, invoices and receipt of goods. When e-P3 is integrated with Velosant's BillingZone electronic invoice presentment and payment service this September, it will produce a fully automated financial supply chain, the two companies say.
Most importantly, the system will allow companies using p-cards to get complete line-item data on any purchase. Philip Philliou, MasterCard's vice president for e-business and emerging technologies, says such detailed data is the "holy grail" for p-card users. Given that data, plus other benefits like ease of use and greater security, Philliou hopes companies will move "all of the small-dollar transactions" onto p-cards; he defined those as transactions under $10,000.
Henry Ijams, a managing partner at Paystream Advisors, says that "it seems to us like a natural progression of where p-card has been, to move up tier in terms of dollar size and transaction complexity."
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CONCUR'S T&E SOFTWARE GOES GLOBAL
Company adds compliance module to current and new releases
The latest release of Concur Technologies' expense management software, Concur Expense, offers new features geared toward multinationals. The 7.0 release is double-byte enabled to allow the use of languages with non-Roman alphabets, like Japanese, and it helps multinationals maintain a standard expense management policy, while providing applications customized to each country's needs, like a European travel allowance module for those dealing with German and Scandinavian per diem calculations. Concur says the revamped user interface makes it easier to submit expenses and provides a more intuitive workspace online.
Concur also added a compliance solution to both the new release and the current version to help customers meet the requirements of Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. There's no charge for the solution, which includes tools that document controls, provide more information on spending details and help prevent fraud. For example, companies can print reports showing the audit rules they've set. Other new reports detail different aspects of T&E spending, like one that lists approved reports that contained exceptions to the company's audit rules.
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SOFTWARE TRACKS INTERCOMPANY LOANS
Financial Sciences Corp. Inc., a vendor of treasury and electronic trading software for large multinationals, introduced a system that automates intercompany lending. The ATOM Affiliate Loan Manager tracks borrowing transactions by subsidiaries or affiliates, whether they involve loans or assets. It can handle a range of transaction types, including "bullets," revolvers and amortized and structured transactions. Alf Newlin, managing director of Financial Sciences, says companies traditionally tracked such loans on spreadsheets or in general ledgers, a method that's less useful now that loan structures are much more complex. Financial Sciences' system tracks factors such as counterparty exposure, pay-down procedures and embedded options.
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ALSO IN THE TOOL KIT
A new tool from Moody's KMV, CRDViewer, lets corporations benchmark the creditworthiness of middle-market customers.
American Express aims to help companies tame project-related spending with a new corporate card designed for short-term projects.
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