Paying invoices with Amex

Ericburnard

Hi there,

I run a small business and spend roughly £70k every year on different products and services. I have been looking at the Amex business cards as my thinking was I may as well get something for spending that much money each year.

Now my question is this. Most of my invoices are paid through a bank transfer. They send over the invoice with their bank details for me to pay directly. Most of them do not have a payment gateway (or at least claim that they do not), so as far as I can tell I would not be able to use the Amex card to pay for those purchases/services due to it being a credit card, and I'd have to continue through my normal back account?

Is there another way to pay these invoices with Amex? Can I send money from Amex to my bank account to pay them? Or is there another type of reward card I should look at? or should I scrap the idea altogether? Just seems a shame if I'm spending that much through business and not able to get discounts/points/rewards.

Thanks for your help

[Deleted User]

Even if you did a cash advance from your card to bank (or a money transfer if they offered that option), you wouldn't get cashback on it

born_again

Even if they did rewards on cash transfers. The charge & interest you would be paying would far outweigh any rewards you would get.

Nice idea, sadly something they thought of.

penners324

Unless your vendor accepts a credit card this is a non starter

lr1277

The website Headforpoints covers travel and maximising rewards from both personal and business credit cards.

The following is not a recommendation as I have never used it, but Billhop is mentioned. It allows you to pay invoices from a card. There is a fee involved. It is up to you to decide whether the points/rewards earned outweigh the fee paid.

If you choose this method, I would check with your accountant whether the billhop fee is an allowable expense.

I don't know how you reconcile payments against invoices, but I imagine all the invoice/client details will be on billhop and I don't know how well their website or statements detail any payments.

Edited to add last 2 paragraphs.

HTH

Ericburnard

Thanks for all of your help everyone. After talking to a selection of suppliers and vendors, many of them do not accept Amex so it seems like a bit of a nonstarter (Although I will have a quick look into Billhop).

A second question that has popped up is this. Could I get a personal account (MasterCard) and use that for business expenses only? From what I can tell it is not illegal or frowned upon to do that.

Barclycard has a pretty good offer on personal Avos accounts right now and I could hit all the criteria pretty quickly if I used it purely for business. Is this ok to do or is there something there I have not thought of either?

WillPS

Ericburnard said:

A second question that has popped up is this. Could I get a personal account (MasterCard) and use that for business expenses only? From what I can tell it is not illegal or frowned upon to do that.

Barclycard has a pretty good offer on personal Avos accounts right now and I could hit all the criteria pretty quickly if I used it purely for business. Is this ok to do or is there something there I have not thought of either?

Yes, this is an option. Some personal credit cards have a stipulation that they won't pay rewards on business spend, but in reality this is rarely enforced - I've only heard of Tesco Bank enacting it. 

It's advisable to only use the card exclusively for business purposes, particularly if there is an annual fee (because then the annual fee can be justified as a business expense; this is one way many offset the hefty fee on the Amex Platinum Card).

Ericburnard

WillPS said:

Ericburnard said:

A second question that has popped up is this. Could I get a personal account (MasterCard) and use that for business expenses only? From what I can tell it is not illegal or frowned upon to do that.

Barclycard has a pretty good offer on personal Avos accounts right now and I could hit all the criteria pretty quickly if I used it purely for business. Is this ok to do or is there something there I have not thought of either?

Yes, this is an option. Some personal credit cards have a stipulation that they won't pay rewards on business spend, but in reality this is rarely enforced - I've only heard of Tesco Bank enacting it. 

It's advisable to only use the card exclusively for business purposes, particularly if there is an annual fee (because then the annual fee can be justified as a business expense; this is one way many offset the hefty fee on the Amex Platinum Card).

Thank you for that.

The card would be used solely for business purchases as I really don't want the hassle of separating personal and business spending on the same account when it comes to the end of the tax year!

I guess then the worst case, they don't pay out rewards on some spends. I'll have another look into the Barclaycard and virgin visa tomorrow again

lr1277

I mentioned Head for Points. They have an article summaring billhop. Including under what circumstances it can be used. This applies to both individuals and businesses.Basically you need to have an invoice to show Billhop.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/01/24/billhop-avios/

Marchitiello

Ericburnard said:

Thanks for all of your help everyone. After talking to a selection of suppliers and vendors, many of them do not accept Amex so it seems like a bit of a nonstarter (Although I will have a quick look into Billhop).

A second question that has popped up is this. Could I get a personal account (MasterCard) and use that for business expenses only? From what I can tell it is not illegal or frowned upon to do that.

Barclycard has a pretty good offer on personal Avos accounts right now and I could hit all the criteria pretty quickly if I used it purely for business. Is this ok to do or is there something there I have not thought of either?

You would be better off looking into Capital On Tap Visa CC as a small business instead of a personal MasterCard

gizz_10

Marchitiello said:

Ericburnard said:

Thanks for all of your help everyone. After talking to a selection of suppliers and vendors, many of them do not accept Amex so it seems like a bit of a nonstarter (Although I will have a quick look into Billhop).

A second question that has popped up is this. Could I get a personal account (MasterCard) and use that for business expenses only? From what I can tell it is not illegal or frowned upon to do that.

Barclycard has a pretty good offer on personal Avos accounts right now and I could hit all the criteria pretty quickly if I used it purely for business. Is this ok to do or is there something there I have not thought of either?

You would be better off looking into Capital On Tap Visa CC as a small business instead of a personal MasterCard

I second the suggestion for Capital on Tap - i have been using that for my business and its widely accepted being a visa card - and you get Avios 1 per £1 spent.