How Guidepoint brought real-time control to corporate cards

Guidepoint’s previous corporate card program gave finance limited control over when and how employees could spend. Physical cards were sometimes shared across teams, making it difficult to identify purchasers, collect receipts, and reconcile transactions. With Emburse Cards, Guidepoint can issue virtual cards in minutes, adjust limits in real time, and connect every purchase to an accountable cardholder. The intuitive system allows one administrator to support more than 1,000 employees without additional headcount.

A card program without enough control

Corporate cards are meant to give employees a simpler way to make approved business purchases. But without the right controls, simplicity can come at the expense of accountability.

Guidepoint’s previous card program offered limited ability to determine when employees could use their cards, how much they could spend, or whether a card should remain active after a specific business need had ended. That created risk for finance and inconvenience for employees.

When someone needed to travel, host a client meeting, or make an urgent business purchase, Guidepoint could not always issue a new physical card quickly enough. Employees either used personal funds and waited for reimbursement or borrowed a colleague’s corporate card.

Card sharing solved an immediate payment problem. It created a larger reconciliation problem later. A transaction appeared under the name of the official cardholder, even when another employee had made the purchase. When finance requested the receipt, the cardholder might not know who used the card, what was purchased, or where the documentation had gone.

“There was a lot of card sharing within and across departments,” said Megan Stalker, Accounting Manager at Guidepoint. “It made reconciliation harder because we had to find out who actually made the purchase, who owned it, and who had the receipt.”

Guidepoint needed a card program that could provide flexibility without creating ambiguity.

The reconciliation cost of shared cards

Under the previous process, finance could see which physical card had been charged. It could not always see which employee was responsible for the transaction. That distinction mattered.

If several people within a department used the same card, the employee whose name appeared on the account might respond to a receipt request by saying someone else on the team had made the purchase.

Finance then had to reconstruct the transaction:

• Who used the card?
• What was the purchase for?
• Which department owned the expense?
• Who had the receipt?
• Was the transaction approved?
• Should the expense recur?
• Did the purchase comply with company policy?

Each unanswered question extended the reconciliation process. The lack of clear ownership also made it harder to address recurring charges, identify inappropriate activity, and determine whether a missing receipt reflected employee behavior or simply a flawed process.

Guidepoint’s accounting team is lean. Time spent searching across departments for transaction owners was time that could not be used for auditing historical activity, improving controls, or resolving older backlogs. The organization needed to stop treating access to a card and accountability for its transactions as separate issues.

Virtual cards put accountability in the employee’s wallet

Guidepoint adopted Emburse Cards to gain more immediate and granular control over employee spending. One of the most significant changes was the ability to issue virtual cards.

Previously, Guidepoint relied entirely on physical cards. A card had to be requested, created, shipped to the office, and delivered to the employee. That process could not always keep pace with emergency purchases or unexpected business needs.

With Emburse Cards, Guidepoint can create a virtual card and place it in an employee’s mobile wallet in approximately five minutes.

“Virtual cards have been great for emergency and ad hoc purchases,” Stalker said. “Employees do not have to use their personal money and wait to be reimbursed.”

The speed benefits employees, but the ownership structure benefits finance. Instead of asking an employee to borrow someone else’s physical card, Guidepoint can issue a card in that person’s own name. The resulting transactions are connected directly to the employee responsible for making and documenting the purchase. The before-and-after difference is clear:

Before Emburse Cards

• Employees shared physical cards
• Transactions appeared under another person’s name
• Finance had to investigate who made each purchase
• Receipts could be spread across several employees
• Urgent purchases might require personal funds
• New cards depended on physical shipping

With Emburse Cards

• Employees receive individual virtual cards
• Purchases are linked to the responsible person
• Cards can be available in approximately five minutes
• Finance can assign and adjust spending limits
• Employees can avoid using personal funds
• Receipts can be matched directly to card transactions

“There is much more accountability with virtual cards,” Stalker said. “Everything is tied to the person, and they are ultimately responsible for their purchases.”

Turning cards on and off with the business need

Guidepoint’s previous card environment did not provide enough control over the periods when an employee could spend.

Emburse Cards allows the accounting team to manage access according to current business requirements. Finance can:

• Activate or deactivate cards
• Establish monthly spending limits
• Increase or reduce available funds
• Respond to unexpected purchasing needs
• Review transactions as they occur
• Close cards when they are no longer needed

Employees also gain visibility into their own available budgets. Before a client meeting or business trip, they can see how much remains on the card and determine whether the limit will cover the planned expense.

When additional funds are needed, the request can be reviewed instead of the employee simply continuing to spend against an unrestricted card.

“Our visibility into the cards is much better,” Stalker said. “Employees can see how much is left of their monthly limit, and we can review their transactions and change the card in real time as needed.”

The result is not control for its own sake. It is a more responsive card program. Finance does not have to choose between giving employees open-ended access and preventing them from making necessary purchases. It can align the card with the specific need.

Clearer data makes suspicious activity easier to find

Improved card visibility also strengthens Guidepoint’s ability to identify unusual or fraudulent transactions. Administrators can review card activity, transaction history, and employee spending without waiting for a lengthy end-of-month investigation. When something looks wrong, finance has a clearer view of the cardholder and transaction involved.

That allows the team to act sooner. Under a shared-card model, potentially suspicious activity could become tangled in questions about who had possession of the card. An individually assigned card narrows the investigation immediately.

Stalker said the improved tools have made it easier for Guidepoint to catch fraud and other questionable activity. The card controls also help prevent avoidable exposure. A card can be turned off when its business purpose ends rather than remaining available indefinitely. Better visibility does not eliminate the need for review. It gives finance better information and a faster route to action.

Receipts that meet the transaction automatically

Guidepoint also improved the connection between card purchases and expense reporting. Employees can upload receipts into the Emburse environment, where matching functionality connects the document with the corresponding card transaction. That removes several manual steps from the monthly reporting process.

Employees no longer have to recreate basic transaction information or determine which charge belongs with which receipt. Once the documentation is available, it can be associated with the card activity already in the system. For finance, easier receipt submission means less chasing.

“For employees, there is much less manual work involved in creating the expense report every month,” Stalker said. “That makes it easier for us to get the receipts submitted.”

The improvement reinforces accountability. An individual card identifies the person responsible for the purchase. Transaction data records what was charged. Receipt matching provides the supporting documentation. Together, those elements create a cleaner audit trail than a shared physical card and an email search for receipts.

A better experience with less training

The employee experience was another important factor in Guidepoint’s move to Emburse. Employees frequently described the previous expense application as slow, difficult to manage, and unintuitive. After adopting Emburse, Stalker asked some of Guidepoint’s most frequent travelers for direct feedback. They consistently preferred the new experience.

“They said it was much more intuitive and easier to navigate, with little to no training,” she said. “That was important because you can provide all the training in the world, but not everyone is going to watch the video or read the instructions.”

An intuitive system reduces dependence on perfect training participation. Employees can see their cards, review available funds, upload receipts, and navigate expense reporting without needing constant assistance from accounting.

That matters in a global organization where employees work across offices, departments, and time zones. A process that requires hands-on instruction for every user would quickly become difficult to scale. The interface carries more of the adoption burden, allowing the accounting team to focus on exceptions instead of basic navigation.

One administrator supporting more than 1,000 employees

Guidepoint’s card program is primarily administered by one person. That employee supports an organization of more than 1,000 people in scope, handling responsibilities such as:

• Issuing physical and virtual cards
• Changing card limits
• Activating and closing cards
• Reviewing transactions
• Supporting employees
• Reconciling monthly activity
• Following up on documentation
• Managing card-related exceptions

Stalker initially worried that the workload would become overwhelming. Instead, she found that Emburse made the day-to-day administration manageable. The system allows the administrator to issue and close cards quickly, adjust controls without a lengthy process, and reconcile activity through an intuitive interface.

“We are a very lean team,” Stalker said. “I was worried one person would become overwhelmed supporting the whole organization, but Emburse makes it easy for her to manage everything.”

The outcome is especially meaningful because Guidepoint did not have to hire another employee to support the program. The organization scaled card access without scaling administrative headcount at the same rate.

Success at a glance

• Virtual cards issued to employee mobile wallets in approximately five minutes
• One primary administrator supports a population of more than 1,000 employees
• No second card administrator needed
• Individual card ownership replaced much of the previous card sharing
• Real-time controls allow cards to be activated, deactivated, and adjusted
• Better visibility helps finance identify potential fraud and inappropriate transactions
• Automated receipt matching reduces manual expense report work
• Improved employee experience requires little to no formal training
• Recovered capacity allows accounting to address historical backlogs and recurring charges
• A large ad hoc card transaction generated a meaningful rebate for Guidepoint

Time to address the backlog

Although Guidepoint did not calculate a formal number of hours saved, the operational difference is visible in the work the accounting team can now perform.

Previously, the card administrator spent more time contacting employees, locating receipts, and determining who owned specific purchases. With clearer card ownership and easier matching, the team can direct more attention to unresolved historical activity. That includes:

• Reviewing older expense transactions
• Auditing charges that had not previously received detailed attention
• Identifying recurring subscriptions
• Determining whether recurring charges remain necessary
• Finding purchases that should not have been placed on cards
• Improving departmental controls
• Cleaning up outstanding documentation

“We are able to go back and audit things we could not really dig into before,” Stalker said. “We have a better handle on recurring charges and expenses that may not have belonged on a credit card.”

The change represents more than reduced cognitive load. It moves the accounting team from repeatedly pursuing basic documentation toward examining the quality and purpose of spending.

An unexpected use case for a $250,000 purchase

Guidepoint primarily uses Emburse Cards for employee travel, client meetings, and ad hoc business purchases. Stalker generally prefers supplier invoices to move through Guidepoint’s accounts payable process rather than a credit card. Paying invoices by card can make it harder to preserve vendor-level information and connect the transaction with the original bill in the company’s ERP.

But a new business need challenged that rule. Guidepoint needed to make a purchase of approximately $250,000 from an AI company that was not yet set up to invoice the organization through its standard process. Emburse Cards gave Guidepoint a practical alternative.

Finance added the approved budget to the card, and the employee drew down the balance as needed. The funding process was straightforward, and the purchase generated a significant card rebate.

“It was a very seamless process to add the funds,” Stalker said. “We also received a great rebate, so I may be more open to putting certain purchases on cards in the future.”

The experience showed that a controlled corporate card can solve needs beyond conventional employee travel. It does not mean moving every invoice onto a card. It gives finance another payment option when the business case, controls, and economics make sense.

Control that adapts with the organization

Guidepoint continues to identify opportunities to use more of the card platform’s reporting and organizational capabilities. For example, card labels, tags, and categories can help the company structure activity by department, event, or another business dimension. That would make it easier to view groups of related cards and analyze spending without placing every detail in a card’s title.

The organization is also evaluating where card payments may complement its current ACH and wire processes. Those decisions will require thoughtful integration with NetSuite and clear rules for preserving vendor and general-ledger information. The value of Emburse Cards is that Guidepoint can evolve deliberately.

The same platform supports a five-minute virtual card for an urgent employee purchase and a carefully reviewed six-figure transaction. Finance can apply different limits, approval expectations, and controls to each case.

The card adapts to the business need rather than forcing every purchase through the same model.

From card sharing to accountable spending

Guidepoint’s transformation addressed a basic but consequential problem. A card should not leave finance wondering who made the purchase. With Emburse Cards, Guidepoint can connect access, ownership, transaction data, and receipts within one process.

Employees gain a faster way to make approved purchases without using personal funds. The card administrator can support the organization without becoming overwhelmed. Accounting can see and control activity in real time, and the team has more capacity to examine the spending patterns that deserve deeper attention.

Shared cards created ambiguity. Individual, configurable cards create accountability.

About Guidepoint

Guidepoint connects business decision-makers with specialized knowledge through its global expert network and research technology. Founded in 2003, the company provides access to more than two million experts, AI-assisted research tools, surveys, events, and other intelligence services. Guidepoint supports more than 5,000 organizations through 19 offices worldwide.

About Emburse

Emburse orchestrates corporate spend across travel, expense, reimbursements, AP, and payments with AI-powered control and insight. Serving 20,000+ organizations in 200 countries and territories worldwide, we give finance leaders the agility to mitigate risk, ensure compliance, and drive strategy. Unlike legacy all-in-ones, Emburse delivers modern infrastructure that powers business growth.