Blackbaud Purchase Card

Lindsey Palazzi

Does anyone use the blackbaud purchasing card? How does it work? We have over 100+ cards through Truist right now where each cardholder codes their own transaction and uploads a copy of their receipt but curious if blackbaud card would make more sense? Currently I am downloading a report from Truist and uploading all transactions as a JE.

Kevin Brazell

@Lindsey Palazzi
If you also have the Expense Management Module, then you're able to not just download transactions to the Credit card activity with the purchase card, but you're able to delegate them to FE users you define. They then log in to Expense Management and they can be responsible for entering their charges as requests with attachments etc, to be approved. If they are fully approved/signed off on, they become paid AP invoices, for records on that vendor and logs a charge in the credit card activity, that should match activity in your purchase card. Now regular credit cards can do this as well with expense management but the Yodlee credit card feed limits those to only 20 cards. With the blackbaud purchase card, it skips the yodlee link, so that 20 card limit is circumvented for it.

Lindsey Palazzi

@Kevin Brazell We don't have expense management. I watched a demo but still have questions. When the card user selects the vendor profile, if the vendor profile is not in AP would they receive an error? Since we have 100+ cards and 400+ transactions a month, most of the card use is on websites etc that are not vendors in our AP system.

Kevin Brazell

@Lindsey Palazzi
If the vendor is not there, they'd have to add it right there. In the same screen there is an add vendor function too.

Mark Eisinger

@Lindsey Palazzi Some customers will have some generic Vendors like coffee shop, gas station, hotel, restaurant, etc. so they don't have to have a Vendor for every different charge.

Lindsey Palazzi

@Mark Eisinger This might be easier since we have so many card users and transactions, if I were to go this route.

Wendi Brockwell

@Lindsey Palazzi we have 40 users currently and everyone loves the system - if you have them enter their transactions through expense mgmt then they don't have to pick a vendor. We chose to go the route of using a generic vendor “P-Card Transactions” and my AP person who is the final step in recording the transactions makes sure this is the vendor used. Happy to answer additional questions if needed

Ed Leiter

@Lindsey Palazzi
We are just beginning the process of transitioning from our approximately 40 Truist purchasing cards to the Blackbaud purchasing card. I am finalizing setup and will be going live with about 7 users on the Blackbaud purchasing card to see how it goes before rolling it out to everyone else. I will let you know on what is good about the BB Pcard integration with FENxt and what is not so good.

Amanda Heiser

@Kevin Brazell We are looking into the BB Purchase Card. I was told that once the charges are approved (through Expense Mgmt) and posted into the system, they do not show up as a record for the vendor, but they show up under the credit card. From reading your response, it sounds like the record is reflected in the vendor activity? Also - not sure if you know this - but after someone charges something to their credit card and the feed is updated, do they get an email notification that they have a charge to assign a GL account to and upload documentation? I was on a call with Blackbaud today and they were unable to answer that question. Thanks!

Sylvia Cook

@Amanda Heiser The user does not get an email to notify that there is a new charge waiting for them to process in the system. The user needs to go into expense management and check for themselves.

Sylvia Cook

@Amanda Heiser Also, the record shows up in the vendor active. And if you go to the credit card register you will also see the credit charge transactions.

Once you get a hang of the credit card feed and know where and how to look for things, it really is nice functionality. I like it. There is still room for improvement like being able to handle refunds properly and I wish we could reconcile the account similarly to a bank account.

Tanya Bakken

@Ed Leiter
I would love to hear the follow-up from this! Thanks!

Tanya Bakken

@Lindsey Palazzi
Hi Lindsay - did you decide to go with the Blackbaud Purchase Card and if so, how is it going for you? Thanks!

Kelly May

@Wendi Brockwell I'm curious about why you chose to have ONE vendor for all pcard transactions. This is something I'd like to do, but my supervisor wants activity recorded by merchant/vendor. I wonder what the “norm” is?