Capital One Business employee credit cards: What to know
When you’re a small-business owner (SBO), there may be times when you feel like you need to be in two places at once. Thankfully, Capital One Business makes it easy for you to delegate tasks so you can focus on what matters most.
Capital One Business cardholders can add free employee cards so you can let your employees make purchases on your behalf. Choose from two access levels—authorized user or account manager— and earn rewards on their purchases while maintaining control over your company’s finances. Keep reading to learn more.
What you’ll learn:
- Capital One employee cards allow your team to make company purchases on your business account, with customizable spending limits.
- Adding employee cards to your Capital One Business account can simplify your expense tracking processes and let you earn rewards on staff purchases—at no additional cost.
- Employees can be Authorized Users or Account Managers; both have limited access, but Account Managers have more control for administrative tasks.
What are Capital One Business employee credit cards?
If you have a Capital One Business card, you can make the most of it by issuing employee cards to your employees so they can make purchases on behalf of the company—at no extra charge. Employee cards are linked to your Capital One Business credit card account. You can add an employee to your account as an authorized user or as an account manager. But regardless of the employee’s role, all purchases are ultimately the responsibility of the primary account holder.
Employee cards make it easier for staff to make business-related purchases without paying out of pocket and waiting for reimbursement. For SBOs, they can also be a useful tool for tracking employee spending. Plus, you can earn rewards on purchases made by staff on your account.
Benefits
There are a variety of benefits to Capital One employee credit cards, like:
Allowing employees to make authorized purchases
Adding employee cards to your business account allows you to authorize staff to make purchases on your company’s behalf, helping streamline your expense tracking and keeping your operations running smoothly. Plus, you can set a custom spending limit for each employee based on their purchasing needs.
Employee cards can be particularly helpful if you have employees who travel for work. They can use their company card to pay for expenses like flights, hotels and meals directly, reducing the need for personal reimbursements.
Earning rewards on employee spending
With every purchase your employees make on their employee cards, you’ll earn rewards as the primary account holder. For example, with Venture X Business, every employee purchase will earn unlimited 2X miles.
Tracking and monitoring purchases
Employee cards make it easy to monitor spending across your account. You can review each employee’s purchases in real time, or check your monthly statement to see expenses separated by user.
Capital One Business Travel
Capital One Business Travel (COBT) is a travel booking platform for business cardholders to manage trips and earn elevated rewards on their Capital One Business cards.
COBT allows you to create travel policies for employees, assign admins to manage bookings and track travel spending.
Primary cardholders can grant admin access to authorized users and account managers to book flights and hotels and view trip details.
Expense Management
With certain Capital One Business cards, you can take advantage of the free Expense Management tool. When employees use their cards for business purchases, it lets them quickly capture and submit expense details to speed up your categorization and reporting process. You can automate report submissions and connect with QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, NetSuite and Xero for seamless reconciliation. Additionally, customers who are enrolled and book travel on Capital One Business Travel will automatically see their receipt uploaded to their Business Travel expense.
Once you or an account manager enrolls your account into Expense Management, you can add additional account managers and authorized users to the tool.
Additional cardholder features
In addition to their roles, both authorized users and account managers may have access to certain cardholder features. For example, for a $125 fee per cardholder, Venture X Business primary account holders and account managers can grant up to 4 additional cardholders access to Capital One Lounges, Landings and Priority Pass.
How do authorized users and account managers compare?
Authorized users can make business purchases and track their own spending, while account managers have greater access to and control over the account. These permissions are tied to each employee’s role—not the card itself—so access is based on their assigned role.
In addition to making purchases, account managers can help handle administrative and onboarding tasks—like adding authorized users, activating employee cards and managing spending limits—so you don’t have to manage everything yourself.
While account managers have broader access than authorized users, neither role has the same level of visibility as the primary account holder, who maintains full visibility and control over the entire account.
Authorized users vs. account managers: An overview
To better understand how authorized users and account managers differ, here’s a side-by-side comparison:
| Authorized user | Account manager | |
| Do you receive a physical card? | Can receive a physical card, but can also be added to the account without one | Can receive a physical card, but can also be added to the account without one |
| Can you see transactions, balances or credit limits? |
Can view their own transactions and their individual current and available balances Cannot see total account balance, credit limit or other user transactions |
Can view the business’s account transactions, balance and available credit Can access account’s monthly statements |
| Can you set spending and cash limits? |
Cannot set spending limits or cash limits for others Also cannot change the spending and cash limits set for them |
Can manage authorized users’ spending and cash limits Cannot change the spending and cash limits set for them |
| Can you make payments? | Cannot make payments through the app, and is not responsible for payments | Can make payments, but is not responsible for the account balance |
| Can you report fraud or purchase disputes? | Yes, for their own card | Yes, for their card and all employee cards |
| Can you replace a lost or stolen card? | Yes, for their card only | Can replace any lost or stolen employee cards on the account |
| Can you make vendor payments with Accounts Payable through Capital One? | No | Yes |
| Can you perform additional actions like requesting a credit line increase, redeeming rewards or closing the account? | No, only the primary account holder can | No, only the primary account holder can |
| What information is required to add to the account? | Name, email, phone number, DOB, SSN (optional) | Name, email, phone number, DOB, SSN (optional) |
| Is a credit check performed? | No | No |
| What access to Expense Management is available? | Can submit receipts via text, mobile web, or email, add transaction details—like category or project codes—and create and submit their own expense reports | The same capabilities as authorized users, but can also enroll businesses, complete onboarding, add and manage users, edit others’ expenses, approve reports and adjust company-wide settings, like expense policies and workflows |
| Can you book through Capital One Business Travel? | Yes, but must be granted admin access to book flights and hotels and view trip details | Yes, but must be granted admin access to book flights and hotels and view trip details |
Capital One employee cards FAQ
Here’s additional information about employee credit cards.
No, Capital One doesn’t check credit scores for either authorized users or account managers since they’re only being added to the account. Because they aren’t the primary account holder, account activity isn’t reported to their credit profiles for business cards.
Who can redeem rewards on the account?
Only the primary account holder can redeem rewards on purchases made by employees.
Do employee cards have the same fraud protections?
Yes, with Capital One Business, all employee cards receive the same amount of fraud protection as the primary account holder.
Do my employees need Capital One log-in credentials?
While online access is not required for authorized users or account managers to begin spending, it is typically required to access digital tools and features.
With online access, authorized users can independently activate cards, track their own spending and dispute charges without seeing total balances or available credit. Account managers can also manage users, configure spend limits and monitor all account activity.
Creating online credentials also enables employees to submit expense receipts and book trips through Capital One Business Travel.
Key takeaways
As your business grows, finding ways to streamline your processes and improve efficiency is key to continued expansion. Issuing employee cards through your business account is one way to help simplify expense management and empower your team to independently make work-related purchases. With Capital One Business, employee cards are free, offer two levels of account access and provide customizable features so you can maintain control from anywhere.
If you’re an existing Capital One Business cardholder, explore adding employee cards to your account. If you’re not a cardholder, check out company credit cards from Capital One and find out if you’re pre-approved today—with no harm to your credit scores—to see how Capital One can help you move your business forward.
