Center vs. Divvy: 10 Ways Center Is Better for Growing Businesses

Entry-level expense management tools don’t have the features, functions, and workflows you need to work at scale, but Center does.

Organizations outgrow the software they use all the time. It’s common to upgrade your ERP, CRM, or HRIS as you grow and scale.

The same is true for expense management software. Lightweight expense management tools like Divvy can be a good first step for small businesses to move from a paper-based expense process to a digital one.

But entry-level expense management tools lack the features, functions, and workflows to work at scale. There are better alternatives to meet the needs of larger organizations.

Switching to Center is easy. Here are 10 things Center can offer businesses who are ready for a Divvy alternative.

1.  No budgets to manage

The idea behind Divvy budgets is clever: you “divvy” out your credit limit to various departments and individuals to spend. Most organizations find budgets are too restrictive, and the tedious process of distributing funds can create more problems than it solves. Accounting teams feel this pain when important business transactions get declined and business travelers are stranded.

When you reach a certain size, it makes little sense to attempt to control spend up front by doling out budgets and constantly tweaking the distributions. A more streamlined approach is to monitor spend with real-time reporting and identify transactions that need a closer look with policy flags. This gives managers and finance the visibility and control they need to keep spending in check without the endless cycle of managing budgets.

2.   Tools to help spenders and travelers

Nobody enjoys expense reports. That’s why Center reimagined the process and eliminated the expense report entirely. Our 5-star mobile app comes with all the features you expect, including receipt-matching, fraud alerts, and the power to lock a misplaced card. Powered by machine learning, Center helps improve the accuracy of expense submissions by recommending the correct expense category.

CenterCard^® is powered by Mastercard^® and includes the protections you expect, like 24-hour roadside assistance, MasterRental Insurance for rental car damage, and MasterAssist emergency medical care while traveling.

3.  The features and flexibility to scale with you

When you’re first starting, just getting the basics like expense type, date, and amount feels like a big win. But as you grow and scale, your accounting becomes more complex, and the general ledger grows. You need to track the information that matters to you, like job number, project, and client. And you need the flexibility to easily adjust your workflows as you grow.

Center’s Customizable Policy Controls give finance administrators the power to create and adjust fields and customize the experience for their employees.

4.  The power to create your ideal expense policy

Smaller companies typically have less rigorous expense policies. There’s more trust that employees will do the right thing, like booking the cheapest flight. As you grow and teams become more distributed, it becomes important to document and enforce an expense policy.

But when your company grows large enough to warrant a written and enforced expense policy, lightweight expense management tools can’t scale to meet those needs. Because Divvy allocates budgets up front, it lacks back-end controls to check expenses against policies and flag noncompliant transactions. Effectively, there’s no oversight that budgets are being spent appropriately.

Look for a solution that can implement your ideal expense policy and audit every transaction in real-time to reduce the risk of waste and fraud.

5.  The flexibility to create approval workflows

As organizations grow, employee hierarchy and reporting relationships become more complex. Your expense policy and approval workflows need to reflect the realities of your organization.

Some organizations want expenses reviewed at multiple levels, such as the direct manager and finance. Others want department-level oversight of expenses, such as HR reviewing all recruiting expenses, or the CIO reviewing all software expenses. Divvy can’t support either of these scenarios.

Look for a solution that can implement the approval workflows you need, including dynamic controls to route approvals and multi-level approvals.

6.  Real-time reporting and live analytics

You expect a reporting dashboard in all your software solutions. However, many organizations realize they need more sophisticated reporting and end up exporting transactions to Excel to do any meaningful analysis.

Best-in-class solutions like Center offer a full analytics suite that delivers on key areas, including reporting on the custom fields that matter to your organization, such as project, job number, or any other field you use in your ERP to track spend. With Center, you can analyze the details, with clickable reports to go deeper, all the way to transaction-level data.

7.  Working capital

As businesses scale, working capital becomes a bigger factor in driving efficiency and growth. Usually the bigger you get, the more capital you need. Corporate cards targeted at smaller businesses rarely offer the credit terms that larger or growing companies need and expect.

At Center, we offer corporate credit cards that work for any size business, whether you’re just starting or you’re a large enterprise. We offer 30+1 and 30+7 float terms, so your business has access to the capital it needs. Plus, our corporate-liability cards require no personal guarantee.

8.  Straightforward cash rebate

The enticement of “7X rewards” is tantalizing. But many rewards programs don’t deliver the perceived value. Restrictions, such as requiring a prepaid card to maximize rewards, limited earning categories, and constrained redemptions can trim 50% or more from the advertised value of rewards. The result is not only disappointment but a lower ROI than expected.

Look for a corporate card like Center that offers straightforward cash back, not a run-of-the-mill points program.

9.  Fast, responsive, and personal customer service

It’s unfair to expect enterprise-level support from a company focused on small businesses. As you grow, you’re going to require more support. Look for solutions that offer a named account manager and responsive customer service by phone and email.

Center is easy for everyone on your team. And when you do have a question, we’re here with dedicated onboarding, live training, and phone support.

10.  Center is free

Center’s revenue model is based on interchange fees. Every time you use your CenterCard, the merchant pays a small fee to Mastercard, which shares that fee with Center.

Because of this model, we’re able to offer our next-generation expense management solution at no cost to you. Look for a free solution without implementation charges or license fees for out-of-pocket and mileage transactions.

Don’t settle for less, see why businesses choose Center over Divvy. Schedule a personalized demo to see how Center helps growing organizations get better visibility and control over their expenses.