The other day I visited a client who told me about Load & Go Visa Cards. He was looking for a way to better handle giving petty cash to employees for minor business-related purchases. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his employees with the cash, it was more that the physical handling and recording of cash purchases was becoming difficult to maintain and as a result, some purchases were not being recorded at all. My client wanted a more efficient system for petty cash purchases and after some research came across Load & Go Visa Cards from Australia Post. These are rechargeable pre-paid Visa cards to which you add your own funds up to the value of $999.00.
My client has purchased these for his employees and has added funds from his business account. For bookkeeping purposes, each debit of funds to the Visa cards is treated as a transfer to the petty cash account. Employees must supply all receipts for purchases to my client and each month these purchases are reconciled against the “petty cash” account. All purchases can be verified and checked online by my client and a purchase report can be printed out and given to me for further verification in the accounts. The benefits of using the Load & Go cards are two-fold: the employees no longer need to handle cash which from a business perspective can be cumbersome and inefficient; there is now a simple way of accounting for petty cash purchases which can be easily checked and maintained; even if employees do lose receipts from time to time it doesn’t matter (well, it does really but it happens!) because now all purchases are recorded via the Visa card meaning valuable tax deductions are not lost.
I thought this was such a good idea that I decided to share it with you here. Below is some further information about Load & Go Visa cards as well as the link to the Australia Post web page which will give you even more information.
- Purchase in store or online for $6.95 each
- No on-going monthly fees but each transaction costs $0.09, capped at $0.99 per month.
- No credit checks and no monthly interest charges
- Each card is given a unique pin number. Purchases can be made in store, online, overseas and anywhere Visa is accepted.
- Cash can be withdrawn at ATM`s.
- Reload the cards in store, online via billpostpay.com.au or easily using your net banking via the pay anyone facility.
- After registering the card online, you can log in to Load `n Go portal and view balances, purchase summaries and update personal details.
For further information go to the Australia Post website.
I hope you found this post useful. If you decide to adopt this petty cash system in your business but would like help setting it up, call e-BAS Accounts and we will assist you with maintaining the bookkeeping required to make this work properly.
