There is literally zero accounting happening in the article but seems solid anyway on what it does cover.
One thing I’d suggest doing different - instead of trying to inch up credit limits rather have that conversation at same time as the investment. ie we’re looking for a provider to park 15m but we also need a credit line/cards/whatever. The sales team wanting the 15m will push to make the line happen internally. It’s the key moment where you have leverage.
Small note that most credit cards allow you to artificially increase the credit card limit by simply contributing the payment on a zero balance.
Example, $0 balance, card limit $1k, pay onto the card $10k, card limit is now $11k.
$10k of that is really prepaid and $1k is truly credit, but it would have solved their problems given they had the cash on hand and mostly wanted to avoid declines on their cards due to draining the credit limit to $0.
The problem with other forms of payments is they're only usually accepted on a contract annual basis and you're now vendor locked for the remainder of the contract. You're also up fronting the capital to that vendor.
I just tried to do this with chase, capital one, and citi. The first two only let you pay up to 10% more than your balance (balance, not credit limit) and citi only 7.5% - nowhere near 10x your credit limit.
Note that by doing this most (or maybe all) credit card companies will only honour whatever protections and insurances they offer on the original portion of the limit. So if you make an $11k payment, $10k of that is like handing cash to the vendor.
I've traveled fairly extensively around Europe and you do indeed need a credit card in the majority of cases. Some rental agencies will accept a debit card but it's risky to just turn up on the assumption that they will. You can find yourself without a car or forced to take up very expensive excess insurance. I've personally had this happen to me more than once and I now travel with a credit card which I have just for car rental purposes.
When you book a rental car through an online comparison site, you will almost always see in the small print that bringing a credit card with you is one of the requirements.
If you're taking out insurance by default then you may not notice that this is an issue because you're effectively paying to reduce the excess to £0 instead of blocking a deposit on a credit card for them to charge from in the event that you damage the car.
This did not work for me in the USA and Canada, where the pre-authorisation attempt failed with a debit card but worked with a credit card (from the same bank) in 3 different places when renting cars.
Finance and accounting are my least favorite aspects of being in a startup, yet absolutely crucial. Does anyone have any tips helping my brain learn to enjoy these? Loaded question...
> Finance and accounting are my least favorite aspects of being in a startup, yet absolutely crucial. Does anyone have any tips helping my brain learn to enjoy these?
Write a tiny system that does much of the accounting. Call the `ledger` program to do the actual debits/credits so you don't waste time implementing the data storage layer.
At the end of it, you should know more than you thought possible about how the debit/credit DE-bookkeeping stuff works, and why accounts and the books are the structural foundation for any business, not just startups.
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One thing I’d suggest doing different - instead of trying to inch up credit limits rather have that conversation at same time as the investment. ie we’re looking for a provider to park 15m but we also need a credit line/cards/whatever. The sales team wanting the 15m will push to make the line happen internally. It’s the key moment where you have leverage.
Example, $0 balance, card limit $1k, pay onto the card $10k, card limit is now $11k.
$10k of that is really prepaid and $1k is truly credit, but it would have solved their problems given they had the cash on hand and mostly wanted to avoid declines on their cards due to draining the credit limit to $0.
The problem with other forms of payments is they're only usually accepted on a contract annual basis and you're now vendor locked for the remainder of the contract. You're also up fronting the capital to that vendor.
I just tried to do this with chase, capital one, and citi. The first two only let you pay up to 10% more than your balance (balance, not credit limit) and citi only 7.5% - nowhere near 10x your credit limit.
Get an AmEx with the balance you need and use that . Much better service and protections. Or apply for a new Business Credit card with your bank.
"they had the cash on hand and mostly wanted to avoid declines on their cards"
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This sounds pretty specific to the USA. Here in Europe you certainly can rent a car with a debit card.
When you book a rental car through an online comparison site, you will almost always see in the small print that bringing a credit card with you is one of the requirements.
If you're taking out insurance by default then you may not notice that this is an issue because you're effectively paying to reduce the excess to £0 instead of blocking a deposit on a credit card for them to charge from in the event that you damage the car.
Write a tiny system that does much of the accounting. Call the `ledger` program to do the actual debits/credits so you don't waste time implementing the data storage layer.
At the end of it, you should know more than you thought possible about how the debit/credit DE-bookkeeping stuff works, and why accounts and the books are the structural foundation for any business, not just startups.
just ideally find someone who has done this sort of work for people like you before
also, consider using ramp.com as your corp card if applicable, def best tracking/rewards of all of them
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