I had a client that had more than eight credit card accounts.  Some of those had multiple card holders.  To make it even more complicated (as if it were possible), the cards were issued for multiple legal entities within the same business.  Oh yeah, and sometimes they used the cards for personal things.

In perfect  “Bookkeeper-Land”, there would be one card for each entity and business owners would never use it for personal things.  The truth is I can’t think of one business I’ve ever had where this has been the case.  And you know what, that’s my job.  I organize the chaos and work behind the scenes to make it look pretty.

I start by identifying each card by the last four digits as it’s “name”.  Seriously, there are multiple Visa cards and they each have a different financial institution behind them so I can’t call it “Visa” because they might be three of those.  Using the last four digits is handy also when the receipts get dumped on my desk.  Why?  Because that is usually the only identifying quality to tell which account the receipt belongs to.

I make notes on receipts as to why a purchase was made and/or what account it will be coded to.  The receipts can sometimes be small, so I staple them to a sheet of paper to write my notes to the side (i.e. Mr. Doe had lunch with prospective client Ms. Smith).  I keep a folder for each of the cards by the last four digits for incoming receipts.  At the end of the billing cycle, I at least have the receipts sorted and I can then interrogate the primary card holder about the other transactions.  No way around it…you still have to track folks down.

I keep a separate short term asset account on the chart of accounts.  That is where I code the personal items of the owner in case they don’t cut a check back to the company right away.  I don’t want that payment to delay my reconciliation of the account but I have to keep track of it.

It’s not always pretty, but it is the reality.  I like the challenge of the credit card puzzle, I guess.