Gone are the days of waiting for bank feeds or manually sifting through card statements. With Real-Time Feeds (RTF), you can access instant and accurate data that puts you in the driver's seat of your finances.
Fyle leverages RTF to streamline the often complex and time-consuming expense reconciliation process. Let's learn more about how Fyle utilizes this technology to help businesses streamline credit card expense management.
What Are Real-Time Feeds?
Real-Time Feeds (RTF) are credit card transactions received directly from card networks like Visa and Mastercard without depending on the issuing bank or card program.
The data is available the moment the transaction is made, enabling you to track spending, reconcile credit card expenses with no human intervention, stay on top of budgets, and catch fraudulent transactions in real time.
What Data Do You Get From RTF?
With RTF, you get the transaction information directly from the card networks, which ensures the data is accurate and up-to-date. When an employee swipes their card, the following details are made available:
- Amount
- Currency
- Date
- Merchant Name
- Merchant Category Code (MCC)
Using this data, you can track and control spending without waiting for bank feeds or card statements, which are often broken and delayed.
How Does Fyle Use the RTF Data to Streamline Reconciliations?
Fyle uses the data from RTF to build powerful features and create value for users in many ways. With access to multiple data points around a single transaction, Fyle can:
- Instantly track and match receipts
- Extract and code expenses accurately
- Gain real time visibility and control over credit card spend
- Catch fraud without any manual intervention
Let's dive deeper into how exactly Fyle uses the RTF data to streamline expense tracking and reconciliations.
For Employees
Instant Receipt Tracking and Reconciliation
When an employee swipes their card and makes a transaction, the card networks instantly send the transaction details to Fyle. Fyle reads the data and initiates an SMS immediately, informing them about the spend and requesting them to reply with a picture of the receipt.
At the same time, Fyle automatically creates an expense and pre-fills the amount, currency, date, and merchant name using the RTF data. With the availability of MCC, the category also gets auto-filled. For example, if the MCC is 4121, the category gets auto-filled as 'Taxi.'
Once the receipt is attached, Fyle utilizes OCR technology to read its date and amount, and then uses AI to match it with transaction data received from RTF.
With instant receipt tracking, employees can reconcile their expenses by uploading the receipts while still at the Point of Sale system. This ensures they do not need to store receipts or have multiple back-and-forths with accountants, as Fyle matches expenses automatically. Businesses have seen a drop in the time taken for employees to attach receipts by 48.7%!
For Accountants
Real-time Spend Visibility
Access to up-to-date and reliable transaction information is essential for making informed decisions when planning for the future and identifying potential fraudulent activity.
Fyle's spend overview dashboard offers a real-time view of all employee credit card expenditures. When a spend is made, Fyle receives the information through RTF and the dashboard is updated in real time. Accountants can dive into spend details effortlessly, analyzing transactions by categories, merchants, projects, employees, or departments. This ensures you’re well-equipped to spot potential risks, operational inefficiencies, and instances of overspending.
Merchant-based Expense Rules
If merchant-based expense rules are enabled in Fyle, expense fields like Category, Project, Purpose, Department, Location, or Custom fields will be filled automatically based on the Merchant identified from the card transaction or receipt.
You can also specify whether you want the expense rule applied to employees from a specific department or everyone. This saves employees' time and effort, especially with recurring expenses, and accountants don't have to spend hours verifying every expense to ensure it is coded correctly and in line with the GL accounts.
Also read:
- Why Real-time Credit Card Feeds are Better than Statement Uploads
- Why Should You Choose Real-time Feeds Over Direct Bank Feeds
- Real-Time Credit Card Feeds for the Construction Industry
How Fyle’s RTF Will Benefit Your Business
- No more chasing employees to submit receipts: With RTF and instant SMS notifications, employees can submit receipts the moment spend is made, and accountants don't have to waste time following up with them to submit receipts and verify every expense manually.
- Reconciliation is real-time and automatic: Fyle instantly reconciles card transactions with the correct receipt without any manual effort, eliminating human errors and saving time for employees and accountants.
- Close books on time: As receipts are tracked instantly, transactions are reconciled automatically, and expense reports are submitted on time, accountants can close their books without delay.
- Financial insights and data are real-time and accurate: Connecting directly to card networks gives accountants the most accurate view of card spend. This information assists in tracking budgets, managing cash flow, identifying spending patterns, and making well-informed financial decisions.
- Easy fraud detection and constant compliance: With real-time feeds, accountants can monitor unauthorized spend, and Fyle's pre-submission policy checks ensure that expenses are compliant before employees submit them.
In Conclusion
Take control of your credit card spend with the new standard in expense management: real-time credit card feeds. Your data should be made available to you instantly. Don’t settle for anything less.
Schedule a demo and see how Fyle changes how you manage your card expenses!
