The old way is one shared company card, a spreadsheet, and a monthly argument about whose transaction that was. If you run marketing on a dozen platforms and answer to a regulator for where the money goes, that stops working fast.
Virtual cards flip it. Many cards, each with one purpose and one owner, with the controls set before the first transaction.
One card, one purpose
Xace issues virtual Visa debit cards in the UK and EU, in seconds, from your existing accounts. Use them like this:
- A card per advertising platform, owned by the channel manager, with a limit matching the budget.
- A card per affiliate or contractor who has to be paid to a card.
- A card per software subscription. Cancelling the tool is cancelling the card.
- A time-boxed card for a conference trip that expires the day the team flies home.
Every transaction already tells you what it was for. Reconciliation becomes confirming, not investigating.
Set the controls first
Controls run at authorisation, so a transaction that breaks them is declined, not flagged later.
- Spend limits per transaction, day, month or card.
- Merchant blocks and MCC filters so a media-buying card cannot be used at a jeweller.
- FX boundaries to cap or block spend outside the card's currency.
- Velocity limits on how many transactions in a window.
- Auto-expiry set at issue.
Freeze, monitor or retire any card from the web app or Xace Mobile, with real-time spend alerts per card.
Tag once, reconcile forever
Every transaction lands in real time, tagged by user, brand, entity or jurisdiction. Because each card has one purpose, set the tags when you issue it and every transaction inherits them.
Transactions sync to Xero, NetSuite or your own systems through the API or Zapier, with GL code, cost centre and audit log attached.
A simple card policy
- Marketing platforms - one card per platform per brand. Limit equals approved budget. MCC restricted to advertising. Finance approves any limit increase.
- Affiliates and contractors - fixed amount, short expiry, retired on payment.
- Software - one card per vendor, limit set to the plan price plus a small buffer.
- Travel - one card per trip, daily limits, expires on return.
- Everything else - gets its own card. No shared cards.
And one standing rule: no card is issued without brand and entity tags. Untagged spend is the one thing this model cannot fix later.
What compliance gets
Every card, control change and transaction is logged with user and entity. When someone asks how marketing spend for a licence was controlled, the answer is the card list, the limits on each, and the tagged transaction log. That beats a reconciled statement and a policy document.
