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What companies still give corporate cards to CRAs?
Career AdviceFor most of the time I worked for Parexel, the corporate card was an Amex, and other than hotels and rental cars, I'd use my personal card for everything and put a "establishment does not accept American Express" note in the expense comment. This was a complete lie 100% of the time, but somehow accounting never brought the issue up. Unfortunately, they eventually switched to Citi MasterCard, and I think "establishment does not accept MasterCard" would be pushing it.
Tigermed, and I just turned down a contract role with Alcon because they require you to use personal credit cards. Complete deal breaker for me.
Any other issues:concerns or red flags on the Alcon contract job?
It's 80% travel, which Alcon didn't tell the recruiter about until three days after they pushed out the call to candidates.
ICON FSP with Amgen. Corporate card is optional but flights are booked through a master credit card while everything else is on a personal card.
IQVIA.
Yup. IQVIAN CRA here. Corporate Mastercard required for all trav expenses except for food, that's self-pay, but we get Per Diem, so I eat like a bird and bank the leftover food money.
Fellow IQVIAN. Second that. They don’t require proof of the meal, so I pocket the money as well
What is the food budget per day?
Whatever the federal per diem rate is for that city
When I was a CRA I wanted to use my personal CC. The extra miles and free stuff I got made it worth it. A couple places I worked had corporate CC and I never used them because it wasn't as much benefit to me as my own CC. Just do your expense reports quickly after your trips and you shouldn't have a problem at all. Im guessing you wait a while to submit your expenses?
A lot of PMs take too long to approve expenses. I try to approve within 24-72 hours of submission because I know this is touching the monitors’ wallets. I’ve heard from some they aren’t receiving approvals until close to the due date (30 days).
Well that sucks. I was a CRA for 7 years and never had an expense approval take longer than a few days. Receiving the actual funds about a week or two after that.
Thank you. Lots of managers don’t seem to care. Not to mention the interest charges come out of our wallet not the employer.
Omg I would LOVE to use my own cc. What CROs are allowing that?
The only company I've ever worked for that didn't issue and require use of a corporate card was a tiny pharma company in Philly that had like two products.
I prefer to use my personal card because I like the points and miles I receive. I’ve been on sponsor side for 17 years, and most small sponsors do not have corporate cards, but even when issued, I rarely used it. Expenses are generally paid out twice a month, so depending on when I got my ER in, I could be paid for the travel well before the due date. If there was a delay in payment (happened a few times over the years), I charged the company the interest (when they didn’t have a corp card obviously).
Syneos
Johnson & Johnson did company ccs when I was a CRA (site manager)
Still do. Corporate AMEX.
I worked for a very small CRO that required corporate AMEX but they allowed us to use all of the points that we acquired with the card. I would not have been able to afford using my own personal card at the time.
PPD/Thermo Fisher issues corporate cards (Bank of America corporate card) to their CRAs. Everything for visits is booked with this card (I only pay up front for my food, as this is paid out as a per diem).
I’m surprised they don’t do credit checks if they require employees to use their own credit cards.
I think they usually do, don't they? Pretty sure that's part of a standard background check.
I totally disagree with these comments. Particularly since some companies especially start ups or smaller companies who don’t provide a corporate card, expect the traveling CRA to book everything for travel on their personal card yet lag far behind timely reimbursement and if the cc bill is due and you have not yet been reimbursed for 3-4 weeks worth of trips that can account for thousands of dollars of cc charges, how do you pay the bill other than dipping into your own personal funds. And btw, interest charges accumulate the minute you charge anything. I fell into that trap a few times and no more (and my credit was good going into those companies). If the company wants the CRA to travel, then the CRA should expect to be given a corporate card. Don’t let anyone sway you otherwise. Not all companies reimburse on time like they say they will especially smaller companies.
Interest doesn't accumulate if you pay your balance off during the month following your statement. Or rather, I should say that it accumulates, but isn't charged to you if pay it off. It's only added to your balance if you don't pay off the balance in full by the statement due date.
I feel like most people should be able to cover a buffer of travel expenses for a month until you get reimbursed. If your stretched so thin that this can wipe you out and you can't pay off your balance, that means you are living beyond your means and should revisit your budget and work on getting an emergency fund in your savings.
You can't pay your balance off during the month if you're sitting around waiting weeks or longer for reimbursement, as my last CRO did. One of the reasons I quit.
Same here
I shouldn’t have to dip into my own savings and emergency fund to cover a month of corporate expenses because they don’t reimburse for over 30 days. Terrible take
Terrible take lmao most people cannot cover a buffer of travel expenses for a whole month and shouldn’t have to. That can be $5k+. You’re out of touch.
Right? And if a CRA wants to use his/her own card, they should be the exception, not the rule
You clearly don’t know how credit cards work
I mean this is more of a personal finance issue. Get your finances under control. Check out r/personalfinance for help.
I have a corporate card and I’m with ICON, but I’m not a CRA.
Yeah this shouldn't be hard to resolve. Unless you have absolutely abysmal credit, you should be able to get some kind of credit card, even if it's not a good one. Then you should have at least a month to get reimbursed and directly pay off the expense.
It sounds like OP just needs to learn how to make a budget. I use ynab (You Need a Budget) and it's pretty user friendly.
It sounds like they have card(s) but they’re maxing out their cards. They mention not having credit “availability” because they’re having to “pay off credit card debt in the first place.”
Agree they need to learn to budget.
You're all probably wrong - they perhaps just don't have enough of a credit history yet to get a raise on their limit. Stop blaming the victim for being validly reluctant to accede to an unacceptable, unethical business practice.
A lot of people would prefer to use their own credit card as that means they get the points/benefits that they can use how they want, I don't really see it as an "unethical" practice to do especially when OP said they were upfront about the practice during the interview process.
Having good enough credit to get a couple grand limit on a card (all you'd really need for most trips) is really not that hard especially when you're making a CRA salary. It's not an entry level job either, OP is probably not right out of college. I stand by what I said.
I work for a company right now that makes us use our own cards. The expensing process is a nightmare and it has taken me over 3 months to get reimbursed sometimes. I’ve had to pay massive interest on my CC debt because of this company and all the CRAs are now trying to get them to pay our interest charges and they are pushing back on it.
So there are plenty of reasons to be extremely wary of using your own card…
Parexel
Syneos
Heeeeeelllllll no. I came from med sales and the only way they could recruit us if they didn’t have a corporate card was by paying 10-30k more at a smaller company.
Just say exactly that. I don’t have the money, can you get me a card or put it on yours?
I have a manager that would take on my hotel expenses bc I verbalized this in the interview, that I have a large loan so I don’t have much cc room.
Worldwide and CTI both provide corporate cards.
Parexel and Syneos uses Citi. I have to say communication helps - when a manager doesn't approve your expense report, remind them and especially after a heavy travel month. Save those emails. Escalate to HR if someone truly isn't approving in 3 months. A lot of times, as a CRA manager I see CRAs submitting from 2 months ago..good financial acumen also says a lot about how you manage your responsibilities. 1/4 of the job is expense reports. I have to agree with another poster - if you're good with your money..a CRA salary is more than enough and if you do your expense reports right away..this really shouldn't be an issue. If you are struggling to find time to do them on time because of your responsibilities, then may want to think about blocking dedicated time to do them and get them out of the way. Set up reminders. Get a head start on the plane or in the lounge. It's how you prioritize your time. Good luck
If you are already working somewhere, I would tell manager, that your credit card doesn't have a big enough limit to hold the amount of expenses each month. They can get you a corporate card if they want to keep you, even if it's not an official program.
What companies don’t? I want to use my personal cards and get all the points, but every one I’ve worked for requires corp card usage.