Prepaid Bank Cards for Petty "Cash"

Aside from an occasional mention, there’s nothing detailed here.

Our committee is looking to replace petty cash with a prepaid card, but are struggling with direct comparisons and finding info relevant to us.

Some providers require opening current accounts, most look like they need to be in an individual’s name, many are marketed specifically for fx/travel, others are outright extortionate. Oh, and then there’s the “trust me bro” companies with no FSCS/FCA protection…

Is anyone using anything that is a standalone card, minimal or no relevant fees, preferably that can be in the squadron’s name?

So we don’t keep petty cash at all any more

But as staff we don’t have the cards so may not be relevant. Three of our Civ Com members have cards for the Sqn bank account and it’s really common if we need stationary, toilet roll, ad-hoc smaller pieces of equipment they’ll either pick it up and drop it in, or pop in for 5 minutes and buy it there and then.

Works really well for us, but we are lucky to have a very active Civ Com! They are also great at doing votes via their Civ Com chat for more expensive but needed items (normally unexpected) so it doesn’t have to wait until then next meeting.

Probably been 18month if not 2 years since we had anything other than tuck money on site (that’s a self running one we keep it very simple, no change given, only buy tuck with the money from brought tuck)

We looked into this a while back, concluded it was too difficult at least with how our bank account was set up at the time.

Tesco had one which looked promising but it’s closing soon, and it did had to be in an individual’s name in any case.

I used this one for a charity trip I did a few years back…. still going: Contactless prepaid Mastercard® for everyday use

1 Like

It was a few years back now but we also used to use to Pockit

Worked pretty well

1 Like

We use Equals Money cards

A squadron can set up multiple and it’s controlled/oversight given to the Treasurer

1 Like

Do they have a plan they don’t advertise strongly? Fees look pretty high…

Free tier and bite the bullet on the occasional transfer fee, or were you using it heavily enough that a monthly fee and free transfers was better value?

I think we had the free tier.

It was a fair few years ago now can’t be sure but I dont remember us paying a monthly fee for it.

1 Like

We use a sumup business account.

Reduces fees when using a card reader for canteen and works well as an electronic “petty cash” account

Can have multiple people with access to view transactions on the account, but 1x person will have top be the primary that assigns other permissions for the account

1 Like

We really need to get into the world of cashless transactions. We’re now into the second quarter of the 21st century (and I still don’t have a flying car or hoverboard!)

Oddly enough, that’s what we’re trying to do…

3 Likes

In my rifle club we use a Square set up for on site sales all by card and the card fees are cheaper than banks.

For internet sales we use Stripe for customers to pay by card.

Both have substantially reduced my work as Treasurer.

For payments, members email me a claim with receipts for postage type expenses etc or more substantial costs pre-approved by committee or within budget. I pay these immediately on receipt by bank transfer so if they’ve paid by credit card they are reimbursed before their credit card bill arrives.

1 Like

For context, ‘we’ was my own Sqn: taking onboard some of the solutions previously mentioned.

1 Like

We’re pretty well set up in this scenario with quick and smooth reimbursement, but looking at a 2 birds situation:

  1. Actually maintaining a petty purchase fund without hassle of cash
  2. For larger stuff they can just load more on in advance

The goal is to “never” need to touch personal money.

1 Like

Makes more sense!

1 Like