Over the past few months, the coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the way we live and work. Abacus and all other business units under Emburse, like many other organizations around the world have had to adapt to the new norm of an entirely remote workforce.
The rapid pace of change has forced employers to quickly reassess how to best support their employees, and try to maintain as much business continuity and consistency as possible. For many, rethinking their use of cards for employee expenses and their expense management software is a good place to start.
Supporting our employees as we all work from home
To maintain productivity, many employers are allowing employees to buy office supplies such as monitors and keyboards, and to keep some of the perks of office life going. Some are also offering the ability for employees to expense lunch and other food purchases (if these were provided by the company). As a result, many organizations may see a significant volume of employee expenses related to working from home.
At Abacus, we’re trying to help make the transition to working from home as smooth as we can, so we’re providing each employee with a controlled spending virtual card that they can use to buy supplies for their home offices.
We’re already seeing organizations start to offer these cards to their employees, including one leading financial services firm that has provided the cards to more than 7,000 employees from its portfolio of companies.
We’d like to share what we’ve done in hopes it can also help you and your organization during this challenging time. Given the need for these initiatives to be up and running as soon as possible, we know that getting your team members quickly on board can’t be a long or complex process. That’s why we’ve set up a package that can help organizations keep their employees as connected as possible until we’re back to a pre-crisis operational mode.
Rapid deployment expense management plan for your WFH employees
The Work from Home Expense Management Starter Plan is tailored to organizations who need a rapid deployment of an expense platform to manage all the new employees and contractors working remotely. This incorporates both Emburse Cards for payments, and also the Abacus real time expense management system.
Sign up here for our 60-day free trial of the Work from Home Expense Management Starter Plan.
Through Abacus, employers can also reimburse for additional expenses, such as mobile phone or home internet bills. Administrators can establish policies within Abacus — such as $100 monthly home internet allowance — to be automatically approved for reimbursement.
Organizations can opt to use Emburse Cards right from within Abacus, allowing employers to provide policy-backed cards to their employees with no fees. It’s perfect for any organization, regardless of size or expense platform.
Virtual cards can be issued immediately from a central dashboard. Employers can limit spend based on their work from home processes. For example, if they are used for lunches, purchases can be restricted to food/grocery purchases, and can also incorporate spend and time restrictions, such as $20 per day only on weekdays. Similarly, purchases of monitors or other office supplies can be limited to stores such as Office Depot or Staples.
Abacus with Emburse Cards can be up and running in as little as 48 hours, and we’ll help you along the way to set it up. There are no limits on the number of users or cards issued. We’re also waiving fees for the first 60 days to help organizations make this transition as smooth as possible.
For more information on how your organization could benefit from these solutions, contact us at wfh@abacus.com or sign up here.