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Suggestions for a small business credit card
Samsam
subscriber Posts: 5
Hi, I want to get a credit card for business only. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on which company is or has worked for them?
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Comments
I do not believe I could have gotten to the point I am at today without that card.
It has no preset spending limit.
It has to be paid off every cycle.
You can get it in your company`s name (it wont affect your personal credit).
If you sign up for the rewards program (think its $75 a year) every dollar charged =1 point, trade points for stuff (my favorite is vactions). Go go vacations! My wife and I went to Las Vegas for a week, round trip air, hotel, and car rental for ZERO out of pocket. Go go vacations!
The customer service has been utterly fantastic every time I have had to deal with them. I had my card # stolen 6 months ago, it took an entire 10 minutes on the phone over 2 seperate phone calls (they called me the first time to let me know, I called them at the end of the month to let them know which charges were bogus) to clear out $40,000 worth of charges and I had a new card in my hand the very next day (at no charge).
I also have a business Capitol One card for the places I cannot use the AMEX, but I tend to not go back a 2nd time unless I cannot get whatever I need somewhere else.
Credit cards will give you great benefits, as you have been able to see the great examples here. However, you need to think about negotiating the best deal for your business. Dont forget to ask about no maintanance fee, best possible first six months APR, financial reports and anything else you may feel will help to keep your expenses down.
Credit cards fees can be a hit if you have a very small maigin in your business and the business is not very large. Also consider focusing benefits on the charges and not on the gifts. Dont forget, there are no free lunches.
I hope I was as helpful as the other folks here. Good luck.
you`re going to start hearing jeff`s and my voices on the radio promoting the brand new Discover Card for Small Business. it`s got a great rewards program, great customer service, and some other bennies. they`re a newer entry into the business and have a lot of market share to gain so you can expect them to go the extra mile to impress users.
one other note, as it relates to credit cards versus debit cards. debit cards don`t help you in establishing business credit - only credit cards do, so take that into account when you use plastic!
rich
If you do any regular amount of business with a small group of vendors, you can often coerce them into accepting the credit card you want to use (if they dont take it currently) by showing them how much of your buiness they are losing to X other company because they do take the card of your choice (worked for me anyway).
Branching off topic just a bit... if Discover wants to make headway into the B2B market, their fees need to be lower than Visa/MC and they need to have better reporting and customer service than AMEX.
richThat`s not a problem for me since I never have and never will borrow money for my business. I prefer to do it the `old fassioned` way. You know, like your grandparents would have done it. If I don`t have cash, I don`t buy. Sounds pretty simple, huh?Did you know that most small businesses will fail in the first 5 years? Did you also know that those who make it those first 5 years will most likely fail in the second 5 years? Do you also know that most of them had a lot of business debt? It`s a lot easier to make it through the lean months if you`re not paying on loans and credit cards.Who cares about points? Accoriding to recent studies, you`ll spend 12-18% more if you buy with credit than with cash. So you`re spending 18% more just to get 1.5% back in cash or airline miles. That math just doesn`t seem right to me. I have a cheap calculator though, so maybe I`m not doing it right.
As for the numbers of new business failure, I`d like to challenge it. Read the Startup Nation book, the numbers are not the ones presented here. This seems more like the numbers shown in the E-Myth book, which was just taken out of old poorly done research.
As far as doing business with Discover and Amex, I agree. They suck! You will accept them in your business only if you are forced to do it. I have been able to manage w/out them and I dont accept them in my place. People give us an Amex/Discover and politely we ask the customers for Mastercard/Visa. It works every time.
I do love the idea of paying for your bills with cash, but you will never build credit for your business. So, the decision is, is credit important for your business? I havent seen a business that does not benefit from it.
profitable, 30% break even, and 30% lose money, with 1% falling in the
"unable to determine" category."To me that sounds an awful lot like only 30% of small business ever make money. I`d say that statistic is pretty reliable. www.nfibonline.com