It’s official: expense cards are now available with Monzo Business Banking 🎉
Employee expense cards are here to let selected team members spend up to limits that you set for them. And with the added bonus of saving you all time spent on admin.
Available with Monzo Business Team, which starts from £25 a month. Ts&Cs apply.
Tired of drowning in piles of receipts while everything else in your life is digital? It’s a story we’ve heard a thousand times and one that’ll be painfully familiar to millions of UK business owners.
For lots of bosses, allowing people to spend on behalf of the business is a crucial part of running a company. But it comes with a lot of added admin. Admin that often means sifting through a pile of paper receipts and carefully copying across expense details from mini crumpled up sheets to digital spreadsheets.
It’s a process that takes a lot of time and often results in mistakes or a lack of information; a missing number here, the wrong VAT amount there.
With expense management taken care of entirely in the Monzo app the process of recording expenses and checking them over is simpler than ever for everyone.
How expense management works
Set spending limits
Choose a monthly limit for each team member that you can update at any time so they’re not spending more than you’re comfortable with.
Ditch the pen and paper
Your entire team’s spending and receipts are stored safely in the app rather than relying on them holding on to receipts or asking for them in the first place.
Track spending in real time
Follow how team members are spending within their individual limits at any time, from anywhere.
Manage your expenses on the big screen
Sometimes it’s just easier to do it on the big screen, which is why you can check your team’s spending on your laptop or monitor using our web app.
Allow cash withdrawals
Or choose not to, to avoid your team spending with cash that you can’t track. You can set this at an individual level so everyone’s permissions are different.
Cardholders can only see their own spending
For team members with expense cardholder access, they can only see their own spending in the Monzo app. They can’t see or access any other part of the business account at all.
Team members with admin or collaborator access get business debit cards that they can spend with and have their own permissions depending on what tasks you want them to do. Read more about access levels for team members.
How the expense cardholder experience works
You invite them to join the business account as a team member. They're not opening a bank account of their own.
They'll get their own expense card for online and in-person spending on behalf of the business.
Cardholders can see their own spending in the app, with any spending that takes them above their limit declining.
They can add expense details easily, including receipts and the reason for the expense but also additional information like the VAT amount.
You can both freeze the expense card at any time if it gets lost, stolen or you think it’s being misused.
Expense cardholders can’t see the balance of your business account, they can only see their own spending limit and they can’t move money in and out of the business account.
Adding an expense cardholder to your team
If they have Monzo already
If they’re already a Monzo customer you need to send the invite to the email address linked to their Monzo account. If their personal email is linked to their Monzo account then they can’t use their work email to join the team.
You can invite an expense cardholder using Monzo contacts but you need to have their phone number saved in your phone contacts and allow the Monzo app to access your contacts list (the contact also needs to have profile privacy settings switched on to be findable).
If they don’t have Monzo yet
If they don't have a Monzo account already you should invite them through the team member screen in the app making sure to use the email they want linked to Monzo. They will need to download the Monzo app to become an expense cardholder.
The steps
Open the Monzo Business app
Go to the Team members widget/ tab at the bottom of the home screen
Select 'Invite new team member’ and choose the ‘expense cardholder’ access level.
Invite them to the team by email or Monzo contacts.
Once they’ve accepted the invite, approve them joining the team as a final check before they’re allowed in.
Confirming it’s really them
For new members who don’t have a Monzo account, they’ll need to download the Monzo app and confirm their identity with some photo ID and by recording a short video saying a few words to camera so we can check if it's really them.
Team member allowances
Expense cards are exclusive to our Team plan, which starts from £25 a month. Learn more about our plans.
Limited companies can have up to 15 team members on the business account and set what individual team members can see and do. The first 6 team members are included in the £25 a month, above that it’s £5 a month per team member up to a total team size of 15. The team of 15 can be made up of admins (3 maximum), collaborators or expense cardholders.
Sole traders can add up to 2 team members, which can be made up of collaborators or expense cardholders.
Let us know what you think
As always, we’d love to hear what you think! Share your feedback on the community forum where someone from the team will be around to answer any questions you have.
Don't use Monzo yet? Give it a try today!
Only sole traders or limited company directors in the UK can apply. Ts&Cs apply.