A small business credit card has a number of advantages. In addition to being able to help with start up costs and providing special rewards that are meaningful to business owners, business credit cards can make bookkeeping much easier. In fact, using a business credit card can take nearly all of the headaches of keeping track of expenses out of your hands, giving you time to focus on company growth.
Business Expenses
To help keep bookkeeping a snap, you can place all of your business expenditures on your business credit card. By having a separate personal credit card and business credit card, you don’t have to worry about sorting through your credit card statement to determine which were for your business and which purchases were for personal reasons. In addition, this helps keep the liability for repayment on your business rather than on you personally, which is particularly important if you form any type of business configuration other than a sole proprietorship. In the eyes of the law, other business formations, such as LLCs, are their own entity. Therefore, you are not held personally responsible for the business expenditures because the company is responsible.
Itemized Statements
Generally, business credit cards also provide the cardholder with itemized statements. These may be monthly, quarterly, or annually, depending on the card. Therefore, when you compare business credit cards, you should inquire about how often these statements are issued and choose the one that best suits your business needs. This feature is quite helpful because it frees you from having to keep track of all of your receipts. Instead of sorting through numerous receipts at tax time, you can simply use your itemized statement or take the statement to your accountant. To help make things easier, some of these itemized statements will even categorize your purchases into different areas needed for filing taxes, such as Office Supplies, Entertainment, and Postage.
Earning Rewards
In addition to assisting you with bookkeeping, business credit cards can also help you save money. Many offer travel rewards, special business related discounts, or cash back rewards. When you compare business credit cards, be sure to look at the various incentives they offer in order to find the one that best suits your business. If you purchase a great deal of office equipment, for example, you will want a card that provides points or cash for making such purchases.
If your business requires you to travel frequently, you might want to get a business credit card that provides airline mile rewards. These cards typically offer other benefits that are attractive to the traveling businessperson, such as baggage protection, travel insurance, rental car insurance, and discounts at hotels. Again, these cards take away some of your bookkeeping hassles because you don’t have to worry about acquiring these forms of extra protection on your own. Simply use your business credit card and you are covered.
Carrying a Balance
If you anticipate carrying a balance on your credit card from one billing cycle to the next, you should definitely look into acquiring a business credit card with a low APR. Some offer special introductory rates that can last for up to a year depending on the credit card and your credit history. Take full advantage of these cards to get your business up and running and work toward being capable of paying the balance off at the end of each billing cycle. For some businesses, however, carrying a balance is inevitable. Sometimes, paying the balance depends on customer invoicing and customers may not always be reliable about paying their invoices on time. Or, your business may have slow periods where more cash is going out than coming in. In these cases, it is best to acquire a card with a low APR, but that still provides you with all of the desirable bookkeeping features.
For more discussion on how business credit cards can help make bookkeeping easier to manage, Robert Alan recommends that you visit CreditCardAssist.com
A savvy customer will always look at the advantages and disadvantages of airline credit cards before signing up with one. However, sometimes it’s difficult to tell exactly what those are.
A lot of airline credit cards have annual fees and these can be very high. For example, some can be as high as $100 per year-just for the use of the card. The airline credit cards that have the highest fees are usually those that are associated with a particular airline.
Sometimes, the cost of the yearly fees can actually outweigh the benefits of having the card. For example, if you get enough points to get $100 off of your flight ticket, yet your yearly fee is $100, then you’re not really coming out ahead.
If you don’t charge a lot of items to your credit card then this is particularly true. For instance, if you only charge around $8,000 worth of purchases to your card then it would take you somewhere around 3 years to get enough points together to fly for free domestically. It would take even longer for you to get an international ticket. During that time, you would pay about $300 in yearly fees on your card. That’s the price of a lot of domestic tickets.
Of course, if you charge more than that to your card on a yearly basis, then you might come out ahead. This can be true if you use airline credit cards for your business or for business purposes. You really need to look at how often you use your card, how much you are charging to it, and how much you are being charged in fees to figure out if it’s worth it or not.
Another disadvantage to airline credit cards is that there are often blackout dates and expiration dates associated with them. This can make traveling difficult. However, by booking the tickets far in advance you might be able to get around some of these, too.
In some situations, airline credit cards make a lot of sense. If you use your credit card a lot, then you can accumulate points quickly. The free ticket that you earn can also come in handy if you have to travel at the last minute, when prices for the tickets can be very high.
Sometimes, too, simply signing up for the card can net you thousands of frequent flyer miles and these can later be put towards a free ticket. This is actually one of the greatest incentives to signing up for one since it offers you a lot of points right up front.
A concluding significant advantage of these cards is that a lot of them now offer reduced mileage rewards so if you don’t have enough miles for a free ticket, then you frequently have the choice of getting discounts off a price for fewer miles. For instance, you might be given the choice of receiving a voucher that can be put toward any future ticket purchase for only a few thousand miles.
For more information on airline rewards credit cards, I suggest that you visit my website. It contains plenty of valuable content on the subject of travel rewards credit cards, so be sure to check it out.
It is impossible to find a person who has not the heard the term credit card and who does not know what it means. Today it is also very difficult to find a person who has never heard of reward credit cards. You may have come across this term in advertisements or may have been recommended one by your friend or acquaintance.
However, the truth is that not many people are sure what exactly it is. This makes it difficult for them to determine whether choosing such a program is a good thing or not. I am sure you know what it means. Simply add the option of earning rewards by gaining points every time you use it and you have a reward credit card. You have to compare different offers before making a choice.
Airline Rewards
For those who regularly fly from one place to another, credit card issuers offer airline miles reward programs. This is a popular system where every dollar you spend leads to accumulation of miles which can be redeemed for free air tickets. This is possible because the air line companies work together with the card issuers to sustain consumer loyalty and provide free benefits to loyal customers.
No two credit cards offering rewards will have the same terms and conditions. Many issuers offer a bonus just for the fact that you signed up with them. Normally, card holders earn one mile for every one dollar spent using their one. Sometimes, issuers team up with different the merchants and industries and offer chances to double or triple your points.
If you often end up flying from one place to another due to the demands of your work or just for fun, such a credit card can help you earn many points very quickly which can be redeemed and converted into free tickets or other travel-related benefits.
Lucy likes to write articles on many subjects. You can read her latest articles on Cheap Glass Vases and Washer and Dryer in One
Wouldn’t it be nice to have credit card companies and banks offering you loans and credit cards at unbelievable rate with huge grace periods, just for the privilege of having you as one of their customers? Those with credit score above the 750 mark are the typical recipients of such offers, much more than they could ever use.
Did you ever ask yourself what is wrong with this picture? Are you thinking to yourself that these offers are being made to people who really don’t even NEED the credit?
To an extent, this is true. Credit card companies and financial lending institutions like to have customers who are a low risk to them. Their entire lending portfolio is based almost entirely on the factor of risk and how likely it is that the people they have loaned money to are going to pay it back. If you have a high credit score, you therefore have a low risk to the lender and you are going to get the preferred rates. But if your credit score is lower, then the lender’s risk is much higher, especially if you have bad credit, and the interest rate is going to be set higher to cover the lender’s risk in loaning you the money.
While this may not seem logical, it really does, at least from the lender’s perspective. I know one person who has about 50 or so credit cards at any one time, based on offers he has received through the mail. He has excellent credit with a credit score above 800. He will get the credit card at the very enticing offer of no interest for 6 months or something like that, will charge things to it while also collecting airline miles or some other affinity type of thing, then either pay it off completely, or transfer the balance to the next card offer that comes long 6 months later. He gets about 4-5 free airline tickets per year through this process, and his money out of pocket for that is virtually zero.
Can you join such an elite group? Yes you can but it is not going to happen overnight. But even with that said, there are many things you can do to hasten the process. The very first thing you need to do is to find out where you are now. If you don’t know (and most consumers do not), then you will want to get copies of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. Chances are better than excellent that you will find errors in your credit report, which in turn cause your overall credit score to be calculated as lower than it should really be. These errors do not auto-correct, but rather they remain on your credit report for years if you do not report the errors.
Your next step is to ensure that you pay each and every outstanding bill that you have on time. This is the single most important thing you can do to raise your credit score.
If possible, try to work it out so that your outstanding balance on any of your credit cards is no more than 25-30% of your credit limit on that card. That will rate very favorably for you and not have it look like you are maxed out on your cards. That shows responsibility and future planning to the creditors and your credit score will go up.
Put forth the effort to raise your credit score and that effort will pay off in spades for you in the long run. Maybe you don’t need more credit right now, but when you do in the future, it will be nice to get a very attractive loan program and to have lenders fighting over the opportunity to get your business.
For more information and additional insights on how to Raise Your Credit Score as well as getting free copies of your credit report from each of the credit bureaus, please visit our web site at http://www.credit-help-center.com
Those with credit scores in the “good” to “excellent” range (generally 700+) can often benefit from using a cashback credit card. These offer additional value on goods and services that you purchase every day.
If you are considering applying for a cashback credit card, it’s a good idea to do some comparison shopping, as the credit card companies offer many different kinds of cashback programs; fees, benefits and interest rates can all vary, sometimes a great deal. Many offer low or 0% interest introductory rates on balance transfers and/or purchases for periods of up to 12 months. Sometimes it’s possible to get a cashback credit card that allows one to accumulate “perks” such as frequent flyer miles and discounts on travel and entertainment expenses. Again, these can vary from one company to another, and even among cards offered by the same company, so it pays to compare.
Chase Free Rewards Visa Card
This cashback credit card offers an introductory 0% interest rate for the first 12 months. Cardholders receive 1,000 Bonus points upon making their first purchase, and an additional point for every dollar they spend; once they have accumulated 2,500, cardholders are eligible to receive $25 back or as gift certificate in that amount from any one of several participating merchants.
Chase Flexible Rewards Platinum Visa Card
Those who do not qualify for the Free Rewards Visa may find this cashback credit card useful. Flexible Rewards offers an introductory 0% APR on balance transfers and purchases for the initial six months; cardholders earn one point for every $1.00 spent, which can be redeemed for a wide range of travel-related expenses that includes airfare, hotel rooms and rental vehicles.
Chase PerfectCard MasterCard
At today’s fuel costs, this is perhaps one of the most handy cashback credit cards to have, as cardholders receive a 6% rebate on gasoline purchases made during the initial six month period, and continue to enjoy 3% cash back after that as well as 1% on all other purchases. In addition, cardholders will enjoy a six-month introductory interest rate of 0% on all balance transfers and purchases.
One From American Express
This is literally a cashback credit card with no limits. 1% of eligible purchases is deposited into a high-yield saving account in your name that is backed by the FDIC. There is an annual fee of $35, but this is waived for the first twelve months.
Discover® More Card
The Discover cashback credit card [http://consumercreditoutlet.com/card/cashbackoffers.html] offers the most in terms of rewards. After an introductory 0% APR on balance transfers and purchases for up to 12 months, cardholders can earn unlimited cash rewards and enjoy up to 20% rebates on purchases from selected online merchants.
Susan Slobac is a personal financial advisor [http://www.consumercreditoutlet.com/]. She specializes in working with individuals to improve their credit rating, build assets and maximize the benefits of cash back credit cards.