Reap Card vs AMEX Corporate Gold Card: Optimise your tech stack for a timely access

Anson

4 min read

Corporate credit cards are gaining ground in the business ecosystem to prevail as the lifeblood of today’s business operations for entrepreneurs to drive corporate performance with strategic cost optimisation. An all-inclusive corporate card not only relieves business of the bane of exhausting your energy on tedious data-entry tasks, but also increases liquidity ratios! With an assortment of corporate credit cards available on the market, Reap is here to provide a closer look at the comparability and variability between **Reap Card** and **American Express Corporate Gold Card (AMEX Gold Card)**, such that you can incorporate the right card into your financial plan.

Reap Card and AMEX Gold Card are both credit cards. Reap Card uniquely offers customers flexible payment options, including virtual and physical cards, whereas AMEX Gold Card is only available in the form of physical cards. The advantages to using virtual cards over physical cards range from better security to greater spend visibility with assigned credit limit.

Besides, Reap furnishes an ultimate all-in-one financial platform that supports accounting automation powered by Xero. Categorisation and analysis of your monthly spending can be accomplished in one place and in real time, saving the hassle it normally takes to route expense reports and keep your bookkeeping up-to-date. This feature is not available with the AMEX Gold Card. It provides relatively basic self-service management tools that only allow users to perform day-to-day account maintenance, such as accessing monthly statements and reconciling charges. Not only can this lack of consolidation negatively impact real-time visibility, it also causes your business to be stuck with less impactful yet necessary accounting tasks.



Why Reap Card Is More Preferable Than American Express Corporate Gold Card

Reap Card

AMEX Corporate Gold Card

Eligibility

No minimum annual income requirement

  • Only eligible for business owner, partner, shareholder, CEO, managing director or administrator
  • Applicants are required to fulfil the minimum annual income requirement of HK$200,000

Annual Fee

Not applicable

Waived for the first year upon successful application, followed by an annual HK$980

Interest-free period

Up to 58 days

Up to 51 days

Supplementary Card Application

Apply and instantly approved via online self-service platform without the need for identity verification

Require pre-application check for valid proof of identity and address by a specialist member and subject to the Bank’s final approval

Administrative Permissions

  • Create unlimited virtual cards
  • Empower each employee with a supplementary card
  • Freeze and reactivate credit card anytime
  • Discretionary physical and virtual supplementary card issuance
  • Create one principal and three supplementary cards for free

Expense Management Features

  • Set monthly spending limi
  • Customise transaction limit for each card
  • Integrate accounting softwares
  • Receive instant transaction notification
  • Flexible spending limit

Privileges/ Cash Rebate

2% cash back on all business digital purchases worldwide*````

  • Local transactions: 0.83% cash back and 1 air mile reward for every full HK$6
  • Foreign transactions: 1% cash back and 1 air mile rewards for every full HK$5

Comprehensive Review on Reap Card and AMEX Corporate Gold Card

#1 Limitless Supplementary Card for Easier Employees Reimbursement

Reap Card allows principal cardholders to issue supplementary cards easily in unlimited quantities. You can segment your digital payment data by product categories, with automatic transaction synching and analysis in your online account. This feature also empowers employees to make purchasing decisions. With this access, employees have the ability to handle purchases entirely on their own when attending business-related events such as client meetings. It requires simply a few clicks online to apply for a Reap Card, principal or supplementary, in both physical and virtual forms, as well as request, suspend or reactivate your card.

A maximum of three physical AMEX Gold secondary cards can be added for no additional cost. Together with its high annual fee relative to benefits, the potential charges make this card not as worthwhile. Aside from its cost effectiveness, AMEX Gold Card is also not available in the form of virtual cards. With its restriction of up to three supplementary cards, it becomes less convenient and flexible for those who usually require a form of payment in order to pay for items on the go, such as meals provided for clients, thus complicating the process of tracking and reimbursing out-of-pocket expenses. In view of this, the ability to enrol more supplementary cardholders will cut the complexity and cost of running the enterprise to underpin business operating efficiency.



#2 Free Integration with Automated Accounting Software

Reap Card incorporates all the necessary technology to spare the trouble of getting your ledger in order, including placing hard limits on monthly expenses, freezing and reactivating your card anytime on the dashboard. Meanwhile, Reap Card also delivers real-time expense reports to provide businesses with big picture context.

Reap Card is further supplemented with the expenditure classification feature. You can streamline your payment process for each vendor and employee, one for Facebook Ads and another for Google Ads, as a case in point. Upon setting card limits on where and how much can be used, you can rest assured that employees will spend responsibly and prevent without overhead.

Other advanced expense management features of Reap Card include:

  • Made compatible with accounting softwares like Xero to free up your valuable employees time on bookkeeping
  • Support inter-bank transfers
  • Limit supplementary card spending based on time etc.

AMEX Gold Card does not offer users the privilege to set spending limits. Even though it can be beneficial for freeing up cash, corporate cards with no preset spending limit impose greater risk of overhead cost and ultimately reduce cash-management capabilities. As your company grows, more engagement in social functions can hardly be avoided. With Reap, every single payment is traceable. The digital and automated expense management spares the need to produce a similar overview but only after rigorous accounting work and only at a specific point in time. The collated features of virtual cards enables more cost-effective money movement.


#3 2% Cash Back for All Local and Overseas Digital Business Spending with Reap Card*

Reap Card offers a 2% cash rebate upon spending - local or abroad* - on a vast array of selected categories, which include but not limited to social media or paid advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Youtube, as well as delivery services, involving subscriptions to local and cross-border logistics or operational services (newspaper and magazines, to name a few). Reap Card also takes care of your payment for recurring subscription-based online services, such as Google Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud and SaaS, to reclaim the time that could be better spent by automating these repetitive accounting functions.

AMEX Gold Card only offers 0.83% and 1% cash back on local and foreign transactions respectively, which hinders the process of building a scalable financial operation even with its complimentary travel reward structure.


#4 Application and Processing Fees

Reap Card does not entail annual income and credit rating requirement for principal credit card application, nor does it come with any annual fee. You can apply with a wave of your hand.

AMEX Gold Card has a relatively broader eligibility criteria. Applicants must be either business owner, partner, shareholder, CEO, managing director or administrator, who also need to meet the minimum annual income requirement of HK$200,000. The annual fee of AMEX Gold Card will be waived for the first year, followed by a hefty HK$980 per annum



Key Takeaways

Comparing the features and benefits can help determine why Reap Card is a more attractive option than AMEX Gold Card to accommodate your business needs. The major differences between the two are the admission criteria and levels of payments technology modernisation. AMEX Gold Card has stricter entry requirements and lacks adoption of cutting-edge accounting technologies. To make up for these limitations, availing of Reap Card, which is designed with ease to use and functionality in mind, is therefore discerning for business owners to align your budget with your business goals for peak performance.

Click herefor more details about Reap Card. Get in touch with Reap team here.

The above are sheerly the true and honest opinions of Reap as of publication date. Please be advised to evaluate product features on your own account.

The 2% cash rebate promotion has ended on 31 January 2023.