Expense cards

Odoo offers physical and virtual expense cards, allowing for better expense tracking and management. Using expense cards allows for real time expense management, creating expense records as soon as an expense transaction occurs, allowing management greater visibility of expense costs as they are incurred.

The elimination of the need to actively create expense records allows for a more streamlined expense workflow, with records automatically created as purchases are made.

To use expense cards, first a card is configured, then it is activated. Before employees can make purchases with their expense card, a Stripe account must be created and configured, then funds must be added to the company’s Stripe account. Once there is money available in the account (this typically takes 2-3 business days for the transfer to Stripe), employees can use their expense cards, and the money is pulled from the company’s Stripe account.

Important

To create and use expense cards, both the Accounting and Invoicing apps must be installed.

Note

Expense cards act like pre-paid debit cards, as they can only be used with a connected Stripe account, and only if funds are added to that account, to be drawn from.

Availability

Expense cards are currently available for the following countries:

Austria	Belgium	Croatia	Cyprus
Estonia	Finland	France	Germany
Greece	Ireland	Italy	Latvia
Lithuania	Luxembourg	Malta	Netherlands
Portugal	Slovakia	Slovenia	Spain

Only companies located in one of these countries are able to create and use expense cards.

Fees

Odoo covers all fees associated with creating virtual and physical cards.

Configuration

Two settings must be configured to use expense cards. Navigate to Expenses app ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings. Tick the box next to Expense Card, then click Save. The Settings page reloads, and two fields now appear beneath the Expense Card option.

A Journal field with Stripe Issuing appears, populating the field. This is the default journal, and it is not recommended to alter this unless instructed by the accounting department.

Next, click the text link terms and conditions and an Expense Cards Terms and Conditions pop-up window loads, with all the details of the agreement. After this has been read, click Close, then tick the checkbox next to I confirm agreeing to the terms and conditions to accept the terms, then click Save.

Note

The terms and conditions must be agreed to use expense cards.

After agreeing to the terms and conditions, create a Stripe connected account.

Create Stripe connected account

To create a Stripe connected account, open the Expenses app, and ensure the Expense Card option is enabled. Next, click Connect to create a new Stripe Issuing connect account.

Fill in the KYC questionnaire provided by Stripe. Stripe takes +/-24 hours to approve or refuse account creation requests.

A green Verified tag now appears next to Refresh, indicating the account is properly configured.

Once the account is verified, the company must add funds to their Stripe balance.

Add funds to Stripe account

For employees to use their expense cards, funds must be available in the company’s Stripe account, to make purchases against. To add funds to the company’s Stripe account, open the Accounting app. On the Stripe Issuing Kanban card, click Top-up, and a Top-up pop-up window loads.

Enter the amount being transferred into the account in the Amount field. The IBAN and BIC fields are populated according to the Stripe configuration and cannot be changed. When configured, click Topup, and the transfer is initiated.

Note

The user wires money to the IBAN shown using a SEPA Credit Transfer (for the EURO Zone). The Stripe issuing partner bank is Circle Bank.

Important

It typically takes 2-3 business days for transfers to be processed. Funds are not available until the transfer is complete.

Configure expense cards

To create and configure a new expense card, click Cards in the main Expenses app menu to view the Cards dashboard. Click New and a blank Cards form loads. Enter the following information on the form:

• Card Name: The first line on the card form is blank, and displays Draft. Enter a name for the card in this field. This does not need to be a person’s name, it can be something descriptive to explain the use of the card.

  Example

  An employee is going on a week-long business trip to Berlin to visit many clients. The employee needs to pay for meals, transportation, and other business-related expenses. Since this is a short trip, a virtual card is created to capture all the expenses, with the name Business Trip - Berlin.

  The marketing department pays for many expenses throughout the year, from email marketing services, venue rentals for events, promotional merchandise, etc. Since the expenses do not have an end date, and it is used for an entire department, a physical card is ordered with the name Marketing.

• Cardholder: Select the person using the card from the drop-down menu. Once selected, the person’s name populates the Draft field, above Cardholder.

• Update info: Next to the cardholder’s name, click Update info and a Cardholder Configuration pop-up window loads. Update the cardholder’s name, birthday, phone number, email, and physical address. All the requested information must be populated, as it is used to create the expense card with Stripe, and to verify the cardholder’s identity, when needed. If any information is missing from this form, the card cannot be created, and an error appears when creating or ordering the card.

  Important

  The phone number listed is used for two-factor authentication. The phone number can be changed in the future. When changing the phone number, an alert is sent to the original phone number, notifying them of the change.

• Type: Click the radio button next to the desired type of expense card. Options are:

  • Physical: A physical card is printed and mailed out to the employee. If selected, a Delivery Address field appears. Using the drop-down menu, select the employee or company address the card is mailed to.

  • Virtual: Virtual cards are available instantaneously once the card configuration is completed and the card is activated.

• Company: Select the company the expenses are associated with using the drop-down menu. Each card must be associated with a single company, and are not available for use between all companies or branches in the database. Ensure the selected company has its own Stripe Connect account configured, or the expense cards will not work.

• Stripe Journal: Stripe Issuing populates this field by default, and cannot be modified.

Next, configure the following fields in the Spending Policy tab of the card form:

• Countries: Using the drop-down menu, select the countries the card is able to be used in. The company’s country location populates this field, by default. All other countries the employee may travel to or purchase expensable items from, should be included in this list.

• Categories: If the expense card is limited to purchase items within a specific category, select them using the drop-down menu. If this field is left blank, the card may be used for any expense category.

  Odoo is able to categorize transactions based on the MCC provided by the card network provider (such as Mastercard). Every merchant has a corresponding MCC that identifies their business and product types. When a Stripe-issued card is used, the MCC is sent with the transaction, allowing Stripe to approve or block it based on the card’s configuration.

  Example

  A company issues an expense card that is only authorized for airline, train, and taxi travel expenses.

  To configure this, click into the Category field, and click Search more… at the bottom. In the Search: Categories pop-up window, click into the search bar and click Transportation services in the Filters column.

  Next, tick the checkboxes next to the desired transportation categories. In this example, only Railroads, Passenger Railways, Taxicabs Limousines, and Airlines Air Carriers are selected.

  Click Select and the selected transportation categories now populate the Categories field.

• Limit: Configure the two spending limits for the card. The first configuration sets the total expense amount allowed during a specific time period. Using the drop-down menu after the word per, select the time period the limit applies to. The available options are: Day, Week, Month, Year, or All Time. Next, enter the maximum amount allowed for the selected time period.

  Next, set the per transaction limit. Enter the maximum amount that can be charged on the expense card in a single transaction in the field.

  Example

  A company allows employees to purchase airline tickets that are less than $1,000.00 total. Additionally, there is a monthly cap of $3,000.00 for all expenses.

  The company would configure the limit as follows: 3,000.00 per Month and 1,000.00 per transaction.

Tip

Card limits can be modified at any point. Once modified, they immediately go into effect.

Important

All expense cards pull payments from a single Stripe account. It is recommended to set card limits to avoid large charges or transactions that may prematurely deplete the expense Stripe account.

Activate expense cards

Once an expense card is configured, the next step is to activate the cards. First, navigate to Expenses app ‣ Cards, and the Cards dashboard loads, displaying all expense cards in a Kanban view.

All cards display their status on a banner in the upper-right corner of each card. Statuses are either:

• Draft: The card form is filled out, but the card has not been requested or activated.

• Pending: A physical card has been ordered, but not activated.

• Active: The card is able to be used. This status does not display a status banner on the card.

• Paused: A card has been put on hold and no transactions can be processed with this status.

• Blocked: The physical or virtual card is cancelled and cannot be used.

Click on a card to activate, and the card form loads. Ensure all the fields are configured, then click either Order if requesting a physical card, or Activate if creating a virtual card.

Note

Physical cards take 5 to 10 business days to be delivered. Once ordered, delivery information is added to the chatter, and the user who placed the card order receives the information by email.

If a physical card is requested, the card status changes to Inactive, while it is being printed and mailed to the selected address. Once the card arrives, follow the included instructions to activate the card.

If the card is a virtual card, once Activate is clicked, the status changes to Active and it is available for use.

Once the status of an expense card is Active, the user can use the card to purchase expensable items, as long as the purchases are within the limits set on the card.

Demo expense card

To test the expense card feature without using a live Stripe account, install the Expense Cards: Demo module. This replaces production functionalities and allows for the creation of a demo Stripe account, using virtual cards and fake funds to simulate transactions.

Note

If a production account is already configured, do not use the demo module, as it overwrites the existing setup.

Using expense cards

Using an expense card is almost identical to using any other credit or debit card. The only difference is if a physical card or a virtual card is used.

When a charge is made using an expense card, an expense record is automatically created in the Expenses app, linked to the specific card. The next step is to attach the corresponding receipt.

Note

It is best proactive to take a photo of a receipt as soon as it is received, to eliminate the risk of losing the receipt and having an expense reimbursement request denied.

Open the expense record by navigating to Expenses app ‣ Cards, and click on the specific card. Next, click the Expenses smart button, and the Expenses dashboard loads for that card. Any expense that does not have a receipt attached to the record displays a Please upload the receipt.

Click on the desired expense record to open the detailed expense form. Click the Attach Receipt button, and a file explorer loads. Navigate to the receipt, and click Open to select it and attach it to the expense.

Make any other adjustments to the expense record, if necessary. Once the record is correct, click Submit to submit the receipt, or Split, if the receipt needs to be split between multiple expenses.

Important

If a purchase is attempted that either is outside the listed countries, listed categories, or exceeds the transaction limit or total expense limit for the specified time period, the expense is denied and captured in the Expenses dashboard for the card, with a status of Refused.

To view the details of why the transaction was refused, click on the Expenses smart button for the card, and click on the refused transaction. The details explaining why the transaction was refused appears in the chatter, authored by OdooBot.

Physical card

When using a physical card, make charges in the same manner as a regular physical pre-paid debit card.

Once the user receives the card, the cardholder must activate the card using the instructions provided with the card. Next, open the Expenses app, and click on the physical card, which has a status of Pending. Click Activate, then when prompted, enter the last four digits of the card, confirm the phone number, accept the terms and conditions, and complete the activation.

Card PIN

To view the card’s PIN, open the card form in the Expenses app, and enter the six-digit code sent via SMS to the associated phone number. The card and its PIN appear in a pop-up window. The PIN is displayed below the card and cannot be changed.

Virtual card

If using a virtual card, there is one additional step to access the card information to use for purchases.

To obtain the card information, navigate to Expenses app ‣ Cards and click on the virtual card being used. Next, click into the Card Details tab, and two items appear: the expense card number, with only the last four digits displayed, and the expiration date.

To view the full details, click View Details, and a Two-Factor Authentication pop-up window loads. Enter the six-digit authentication code that is texted to the cardholder’s phone number. The card appears in the pop-up window, with all the information displayed: the card number, expiration date, and security code. When done, close the window by clicking X.

Tip

Android users can add their virtual expense cards to a Google wallet.

Lost cards

When a physical card is lost, or if credentials for a virtual card have been compromised, the cards must be updated in the Expenses app so they cannot be used. This is referred to in Odoo as blocking.

To stop any charges on a card, navigate to Expenses app ‣ Cards, and click on the specific card being deactivated. On the card form, click the Block button, and a Block a Card pop-up window loads.

Click into the field next to Reason, and select the reason the card is being blocked. The options are Lost, Stolen, or Other. After making a selection, click Block, and the card is unable to be used, and a red Blocked banner appears on the card in the Cards dashboard view.

Example

An employee is given a virtual expense card to use for an upcoming business trip. The employee uses this card to purchase an airline ticket and a hotel room, one month before the scheduled trip.

A week before the trip, they receive an email from the airline, explaining there has been a data breach, and customer names, contact information, and purchase details including credit card numbers have been leaked.

The employee reaches out to their manager, explaining the situation. The manager opens the virtual expense card, and blocks the card using the reason Other. Then the manager issues another virtual card for the employee to use for their business trip.

Temporary card pauses

When an employee is out of office for an extended period of time, such as a vacation, or an illness, it is recommended to temporarily deactivate their card to prevent any fraudulent charges. This is referred to in Odoo as pausing a card.

To pause a card, navigate to Expenses app ‣ Cards, and click on the specific card being paused. On the card form, click Pause, and the card is unable to be used until it is activated.

Example

An employee in the sales department has a physical expense card to use for client meetings. They recently welcomed a new child, and will be out of office on parental leave for three months.

On the employee’s last day, their manager opens the expense card record, and clicks Pause. When the employee returns to work, the manager opens the expense card form and clicks Active to reactivate the card.