Your organization may choose to enroll in the Amex Virtual Card Program in tandem with the Business or Corporate Card Program in order to issue and manage virtual credit cards within Emburse Spend. This allows your organization to easily reinforce company policy with pre-set budgets, get real-time visibility into employee spend, and quickly reconcile transactions while minimizing manual expense reporting.
Prerequisites
1. Before enrolling, you must connect your Amex Business or Corporate Card Program.
2. American Express has a 40-character limitation on their API for virtual card issuing. If your company's name in Emburse Spend exceeds 40 characters, an error will occur during the enrollment process.
If an error occurs, admins may follow these steps to resolve it.
1. Go to Company Settings and shorten your company name to fewer than 40 characters.
2. Save the change.
3. Go to the Card Programs screen and resume the steps to enroll in your Amex virtual card program.
Step 1: Identify the Funding Source Card
In order to activate this functionality, you need to first identify which American Express physical card to use as the “parent” funding source. The following types of cards may be enrolled as parent cards:
- American Express Corporate Cards, including Corporate Purchasing Cards
- Basic Account Cards
- Supplemental Cards
Once a parent card is enrolled, you may issue as many virtual cards as needed, to as many employees as needed. Any transactions from those cards will be assigned to the virtual card holder for reconciliation and subsequently integrated into your accounting system with all respective accounting details.
There are no restrictions as to who in your company can be issued a virtual card. The approval workflow for virtual card transactions will provide visibility into spending on virtual cards.
Best Practices
- Choose a parent card that is not being used today for physical card purchases. This will simplify the reconciliation process, since you will only receive a statement with virtual card transactions.
- Choose a card that is not tied to an employee who might leave the company.
Step 2: Verify Access to the Card Account
Once you have identified which card to enroll, you just need to verify whether you have the American Express Manage Your Card Account (MYCA) credentials for that card. This is the account that the cardholder uses to log in to the Cards and Banking features. These credentials may differ from the cardholder's American Express @ Work login, which is not supported for virtual card enrollment.
- If you have access to the credentials, the enrollment is online and real-time.
- If you do not have access to the credentials but someone else in your company does, you can still enroll the card, but it will require approval from the person who owns the card.
Step 3: Enroll a Card for Virtual Card Issuance
Having the primary cardholder or an authorized account manager on hand during this step will streamline the setup process. Otherwise, they will be notified via email to approve the enrollment, which can cause delays.
1. To enroll, click on the Settings icon in the top right of Emburse Spend, and then click on Card Programs in the Company Settings menu.
2. Click the blue Add Card Program button in the top right.
3. In the pop-up window, click Activate Virtual Cards Issuing.
4. Fill in the required information to register the card with Emburse.
- Card Description: This is the cardholder name on the face of the parent card.
- Expiration Date: Make sure you are using the expiration date on the face of the parent card you want to connect.
- Billing Address: Enter a valid U.S. address (PO Boxes and Commercial Mail Receiving Agency addresses are not allowed by American Express).
- Preferred Account Name: Choose one that will help your team differentiate between this and any other cards that may be connected within Emburse Spend. Or leave it blank to keep the default name.
When done, click Add Parent Card.
Step 4: Connect to the American Express Account
Once you have completed the Emburse registration, a new browser tab or pop-up will launch to allow you to complete the virtual card enrollment with American Express. (Be sure your browser settings allow pop-ups for this site.)
You will follow different steps if you are enrolling a card for which you have the credentials or using a card for which you do not have the credentials.
Enroll a Card for Which You Have Credentials
If you are enrolling your own card or the primary cardholder or an authorized account manager is on hand, follow these steps. Otherwise, follow the steps below, under "Enroll Another Person's Card."
1. Click I’m Enrolling My Own Card.
2. You will be prompted to sign in to your American Express online bank portal using your American Express MYCA account User ID and Password. Make sure you are using the credentials that you use to log in to the Cards and Banking features. These credentials may differ from your American Express @ Work login, which is not supported for virtual card enrollment.
If you are the cardholder but don't have these credentials, you can select Forgot User ID or Password. If you're a new American Express customer, you can create a new online account at americanexpress.com/register.
3. After inputting your credentials, select the correct small business or corporate card account to connect with Emburse.
Select an eligible card, agree to the terms and conditions, and complete enrollment.
4. Once you've completed all steps with American Express, you will return to Emburse to verify the enrollment has been successful.
Return to Emburse Spend to finish the enrollment and continue configuring your account.
Enroll Another Person's Card
1. Click I’m Enrolling Another Person's Card.
2. Enter the other user's 15-digit card number in both boxes and click Submit.
American Express will contact the card’s account owner via email to ask for verification. The owner will need to follow the instructions in the email to approve the use of the card for virtual card issuing.
While this is happening, and when you return to Emburse Spend, you will see that the card program has been created, but it will show as “Pending review by financial institution.”
Once the card owner approves the card enrollment, this message will disappear, the program will become active, and new cards can be created.
For more information on how to issue and manage American Express Virtual Cards, visit our help center article here.