When Clients Add New Credit Cards, What They Need to Know

On one hand, it can be beneficial to get the points or lower interest but on the other hand, there are other factors involved which one should consider.

When getting a new credit card

Number one, as their Bookkeeper, we have several tasks we have to do on our end when a new credit card is added to the "collection": 

🟦 Client needs to give us the name of the bank and last 4 digits of the card

🟦 Client needs to give us the login. You get this from the bank.

🟦 We will need to sync that account to Quickbooks and we do that by logging into your bank or you can do it but often it stops syncing and we need to login again to resync it. Most of our clients don't want to be bothered getting into QBO. 

🟦 We save it in our bookmarks so we can get the statements monthly. The first time we need to sign in with you since it usually prompts us for security questions or codes. Yes, most clients trust us with their logins or make separate ones for us or they can grab statements themselves each month but most do not want to be bothered as they are already overwhelmed with their "hat".

🟦 We have to enter transactions into Quickbooks if it's already backlogged because the client has been spending and didn't tell us that they got a new card.

🟦 We have to put it on our bookkeeping checklist so we know to reconcile it monthly

Adding credit cards to your list we manage

As you can see, there are quite a few steps involved when a client adds ONE new credit card.

Number two, keep in mind is that our estimates and monthly dues are calculated by how many accounts we manage in addition to other factors we list out on our agreement.

Number three, we have witnessed clients adding more cards as a strategy for interest rate or points only to rack up more debt and then feel overwhelmed by their debt payments because they charged more than they made due to getting used to using the credit card but not setting up a system to set aside the money from the income they made. Although we monitor expenses and income monthly, we do not do it weekly and within a month, client's can rack up over $20K+ in debt depending on their business.

...we have witnessed clients adding more cards as a strategy for interest rate or points only to rack up more debt and then feel overwhelmed by their debt payments because they charged more than they made

These are all things to consider when adding a new credit card to your list of existing ones.

Let us know if this blog helped. If you would like a Free Consult, CONTACT US!

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