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On of the perks of having a white collar corporate job in this age of plastic money is having your own expense account. Most companies give out corporate credit cards to their employees, especially to those that are expected to travel a lot for business.  But keep in mind this is not a perk that most companies will give someone if they are always having to deal with how to fix bad credit.

The way the payments and expenses work for these cards is pretty simple although there have been reports of some card owners complaining about how to file their expenses to the accounts payable. Here’s how it works – when you use your corporate card for any transaction, you are handed a receipt. Nearing the end of the expense cycle, you are asked by the accounts payable to “file your expenses” and submit the receipt to them. Once that is done, your work is done as your accounts payable then makes the payment to the credit card issuer.

It is quite astonishing how some people still see late fees and extra charges on their cards for no fault of their own when all these steps are so simple. Confrontations between employees, the customer support rep working in the credit card company and at times, also with someone in the accounts department in the corporate office is what it eventually boils down to. The truth is that proper knowledge of how corporate cards work can help to avoid such ugly scenarios.

· Firstly, as employees, a lot of customers forget that there are different types of corporate credit cards depending on who the issuer is. For example, when compared to Visa or MasterCard, American Express Corporate Cards have different set of rules of usage. The important thing for employees to do on getting their card is to ask their accounts payable about the kind of charges they cannot make with the card. In most cases, differences arise with retail charges which involve apparel stores, electronic gadgets stores, shopping marts like Wal-Mart, etc.

· When traveling abroad, it is a good idea to let the card company know your travel dates beforehand. In case of irregular charges from abroad, this ensures that auto fraud protection will not freeze the card. In some cases, notifications are also necessary for retail charges. It is also important to know how to classify retail charges. People have had their card denied in the past while trying to book trainings and seminars with their corporate card. The reason being that such charges fall under retail. In such cases, call the customer rep in the card company to have the charge taken care of over the phone itself and make the card go through.

· Let us talk about the all important part of membership points and frequent flier miles. Most cards are not pre-approved with the membership points feature because most offices do not care about it. One can activate this feature just by calling the card company and it costs just $15. However, the charge will have to be paid by the card owner himself as it cannot be expensed. The George Clooney movie ‘Up in the Air’ depicts the value of these loyalty points clearly.

Late fees has been bothering corporate card members for a long time now. This is how to avoid it. To avoid late fees, most corporate cards need to be paid in full because they are charged cards. However, one might have to incur a late fee if the accounts payable makes the payment after the time period. One can simply pay the last few charges out of one’s own pocket in order to avoid that. You can have these charges reimbursed by asking the card company to send the employer a check equaling the amount of extra credit. This is how late fees can be avoided.

Corporate credit cards are not a luxury but a necessity for a lot of professionals. One must remember that these are not meant for retail purchases unless specified. If employees follow the tips discussed here and use their card in a responsible manner, there is no reason why one should face any problems while filing the expenses.  Even though its not a personal card and you do not have to worry so much on how to get credit score up if you are dealing with how to fix bad credit.Your company will still want to ensure that you are a fiscally responsible person.

Debt consolidation is essential for people that require help managing their finances. When month-to-month expenses turn out to be too difficult to deal with, people have two choices; consolidation or debt negotiation. The worse thing individuals can do is to disregard the issue. It’s important look at your financial situation and and consider ways to pay back the money you owe.

Debt consolidation services will help individuals with establishing a repayment plan with their existing collectors. This company will consolidate what is due to all of the creditors into one payment. The quantity owed will probably be decreased, as well as the interests rates. This money is going to be repaid to the lenders as soon as they concur to the actual terms.

There are lots of advantages to this type of arrangement. It organizes all of your debts into one single payment. This tends to make it easier to track your debts. This plan will even stop creditors from calling you since a payment plan is in effect.

It is important to note, individuals that opt for this plan have to cancel all of their credit cards that are included within the repayment plan. There is also a fee that must be paid. This is a nominal administration fee that is attached to the monthly payments. This is a good program to enter for individuals that have high interest rates on several credit card bills. They will benefit from making only one payment a month to one company. This is will keep individuals that could not keep up with their bills organized.

Another option is debt negotiation. This is usually offered to those who can not pay a consolidation program. You can enter a negotiation program and the company will make payment deals with the creditors. The individual that enters this type of program, will stop paying their creditors. The negotiation company will accept the money owed from the individual and will forward them to the creditor.

The organization will negotiate lower payments with all of the outstanding creditors. It is possible to see reductions of fifty percent or more. But each case is different and the amount saved will vary. Once the negotiated settlement quantity is set, the company will accept the payment and forward it to the creditors.

A downside of the negotiation program is that it reduces your credit score. But most negotiation companies will require that the creditor will report to the credit Bureaus that the bill has been paid in full once the account is settled. Individuals will have to decide if debt consolidation or negotiation is the better course of action to take.