Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, Google, Oracle – deploying cutting‑edge office software these days means relying on the world’s largest Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers. Yet the latest software, apps and cloud solutions come with a twist, requiring subscriptions. Though this business model is beneficial to companies in many ways – lowering ITinvestment costs while increasing employees’ mobility – its recurring monthly or annual fees call for an efficient handling.

IT, hardware, software and digital goods volume share in 2023 by AirPlus customers

Where the spending on digital goods by AirPlus customers went in 2023

An analysis of AirPlus transaction history highlights a significant trend in IT procurement: cloud services, software, and digital goods account for 84% of total IT spend, while IT hardware and maintenance represent just 16%.

16% IT hardware, system softwareand repair

84% Digital goods (software applications, and services etc.)

Challenges companies are facing include the diversity of tools required, their individual use, and the preferred payment method:

IT purchases are getting more and more decentralized and require payment by credit card. From an employee perspective, prepaid cards or the personal card are a perfect fit for this purpose.

However, these entail an inefficient and labor-intensive process for allocation and invoice reconciliation. In this case, budget control is just as non-existent as spending transparency.

Virtual credit cards by AirPlus offer a centralized, streamlined, and fully controlled solution for any credit card payment; security and SCA-compliance is ensured.

When generating a virtual card, you can define several of security settings including a validity period and/or a maximum amount.

Additionally, you can enter transaction information in up to nine additional data fields. Enrich your virtual cardswith specific details on employee names, order numbers, and/or cost centers and save a lot of time whenreconciling invoices and transactions.

This valuable additional data makes it easy to identify which team made which purchase at which merchant and for which cost center.

Enjoy full transparency and enhanced control for your credit card payments – worldwide in the Mastercard® network.

Do you need immediate access to software or to pay for a personal, annual, or one‑time subscription by credit card?

Create a single-use card for the required amount and authorize the respective employees and/or software users.

• Single-use cards are easy to use, no SCArequired
  
  
• No need for further monitoring as Single-use cards can only beused onceandonly up to the defined amount.

Allocate budgets for specific purposes to afford departments and employees more flexibility while you always retain control of spending:

You can allocate employees to their own framework and budgets, and enable them to generate virtual cards.

• You retain centralized control and can review and monitor budgets at any time.

Handle recurring payments, for example, monthly licensing fees easily with multi‑use cards:

Create a multi-use card for a defined budget and log it into the framework

• The card must be verified only for the first payment; after the merchant being whitelisted, mostly subsequent transactions require no further user authentication.
  
  
• No further maintenance as card can only be used by the logged merchantand only up to the defined amount.
  
  
• Reconciliation can be automized.

Add key transaction information (e.g., employee name, PO, cost center) when generating cards to ensure that all information is available on the final statement – easily to be processed through.