
Dash: A company card for every employee - justinsb
http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/08/karmic-labs-gets-5m-to-give-every-employee-a-company-card/
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revelation
_In practice it looks like this: Let’s say a photography studio employee is
out shopping for props for an upcoming photo shoot, and their card limits them
to spending $100. When they get to the register they discover that the actual
cost is closer to $110. That employee can shoot a request over to their
manager asking for an additional $15, and Dash will send a push notification
to that manager. The manager can approve the additional funds right from their
phone, or from within Slack (a popular office communication platform)._

Holy micromanager.

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lm741
We're trying to build a system where companies feel comfortable giving cards
out to all of their employees and then adjust the limits upwards as they build
trust internally. The ad-hoc requests features from this example might be best
for new/temporary employees or large purchases. Over time I'd hope that most
employees will actually have a monthly budget and thus a greater degree of
autonomy.

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tashoecraft
Cool concept, I just feel like I've you could have chosen any other name.
There are tons of companies/products called Dash and I don't see how it
benefits your product or contributes in any way.

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pbreit
Really? The only one I can think of is the Kardashian boutique (and that was
after Googling).

In fact, I would ditch the "Karmic Labs" thing and go all-in on Dash.

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martingordon
* Amazon Dash

* API Browser for OS X (kapeli.com)

* "The easiest way to pay at restaurants and bars" (getda.sh)

* Smart driving app (dashby.com)

* Dash Dashboard (thedash.com)

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pbreit
Was that by memory or Google?

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abalone
What's the business model? Probably not interchange, if its debit cards. Debit
card interchange got regulated down to practically nothing by the Durbin
amendment.

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prbuckley
It must have taken a tremendous amount of work to get the payment gateways to
work this way. How did you guys do it?

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rweidenmiller
Thanks, @prbuckley, it was a painful two years of working very closely with
one of the largest processors in the US, FIS, their core banking software
actually powers thousands of banks, so we essentially, built a virtualization
layer on top of their older systems. We intend to open these APIs down the
road for others to build upon...stay tuned :) (I am a founder here)

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rebootthesystem
We've been experimenting with a service that allows us to issue virtual fixed-
limit cards. In other words, when we setup the card we deposit a certain
amount into that card. Those funds are taken out of our bank account.

Once that money is used-up the card is no-longer usable and a new one has to
be issued. This is a pain.

We've been looking for a solution that would allow us to create and issue
virtual check cards linked to a central bank account. In this scenario the
cards would still have spending limits but can be refreshed/renewed as needed.
An API would be fantastic.

Can your platform do this?

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rweidenmiller
Yes, We built this and much, much more. You can contact us at
https:/getdash.io and we can discuss more.

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rebootthesystem
Excellent! Thanks.

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webjprgm
I prefer using my own credit card and getting reimbursed since then I get
points on my card. (Which I then use to buy things on Amazon that I want
without considering my budget.)

Obviously this is part of credit card companies charging fees that hurt small
businesses. But as long as the system is that way I'll use it. Retailers don't
charge me different fees based on which credit card I use, so I might as well
use the one that gives the best rewards.

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darkstar999
I would have a problem with this if my company required it. You are on the
hook until you get reimbursed. What if something happens to the company? The
agreement with the CC is that _you_ are liable, not the company.

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conductr
I would think that most employees are already in this risk situation. For
example, they are spending borrowed $ on living expenses, or know they have
bills coming up (mortgage, etc), and they are doing so because of implied
confidence that a paycheck will be deposited into their bank account which
will allow them to pay those bills on time.

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darkstar999
But those are personal expenses, whereas the credit card is business expenses.

If you are spending future money you may want to get your finances in check.

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cypherpunks01
This sounds awesome—I would definitely consider this for our business that
requires a lot of loaning out debit cards, remembering who last had one, and
bugging people for receipts.

How does this interact with our bank account, and will it work with any
account? Does it replay debit purchases 1:1 that we'd see on our bank
statement, or are charges bundled somehow?

Our accountants say we should be building business credit and we are
considering getting an AMEX card for partially that reason. There's no plan to
have any sort of credit involved with Dash, I imagine?

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rweidenmiller
You open a Dash account and link up to three bank accounts. It flows it simply
work like a debit purchase. If you need to build credit, you should look at a
credit solution, but presumably not every employee gets a credit card or you
may not want to do card sharing, for that, Dash is great. We are fortunate
enough to have some strong partners in fintech and are exploring credit
options, but nothing commercially available at this time. (Disclosure: I am a
founder here)

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pbreit
A modern company/corporate card sounds like a terrific idea. I wonder about
the debit model both with its lower interchange revenues as well as company
preference for post-pay (like Amex corp cards)?

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jgbond
This would suck for people who like to use their own cards to build rewards
points and then get reimbursed.

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JoshTriplett
That's already an issue for anyone who has a corporate card today. It's much
easier for the company to handle expenses via a corporate card bill than
someone's personal card, and it's also much easier to avoid abuse.

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saryant
Depends. Many employers allow their employees to accrue Amex points off
corporate cards. Paid for most of a vacation with those a few jobs ago.

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NeutronBoy
Yep - I work at a large consulting company, and everyone has their own Amex.
It's a corporate issued Amex, but it's your name on the card and you're
responsible for paying it off. The benefit is, you get a listing of
transactions in our expense software, and I can link specific transactions to
specific clients or jobs. Then the reimbursed expense shows up in your bank
account. Or, I can mark them as personal and pay for them myself.

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saryant
I used to work for one of the big consulting firms. We were required to use a
corporate Amex but our expense software wasn't integrated, so we still had to
copy over every single transaction manually.

At least they let us keep the points.

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lucaspiller
In the UK Barclaycard do something similar, though it's definitely not as
slick and uses virtual credit cards:

[http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/business/making-
payments/busine...](http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/business/making-
payments/business-payment-solutions/barclaycard-precisionpay-
solutions/barclaycard-precisionpay)

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garduque
Debit cards attached to my actual cash bank account? Handed out to employees?
Can't use it for car rentals or hotel rooms? Nah. Hook it up to a points
credit card and I'm in.

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rweidenmiller
What makes you think you cannot use it for car rentals or rooms??? That's not
factually correct at all. Nothing to prevent points here as well.

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pbreit
Many car rental companies and some hotels used to require credit cards (vs
debit cards) but they are getting better. Hotels are still problematic because
they frequently place very large holds on your balance which is more
disruptive to debit users than credit users.

