After you pay with a Factorial card, you don't create an expense: Factorial creates it and you only add the receipt. One, our AI assistant, matches (links) the receipt to the payment and fills in the rest. For finance, that's card reconciliation: every card payment with its receipt, category, project, cost centre and VAT.

What Factorial creates for each card payment

Overview

When a payment with a Factorial card issued for Expenses is accepted, Factorial creates a draft expense for the cardholder with:

• the amount and currency charged, the date of the payment and the merchant,
• a category based on the kind of merchant, or Other,
• the cardholder's cost centre,
• Payment: not reimbursable, paid with Factorial card.

The receipt, project, description and VAT start empty. The amount, currency and merchant can't be edited.

Add the receipt and let One match it

How to use

On the mobile app

1. After paying, you get a New card payment notification, for example "💳 £42.50 at Café Central – Please, add a receipt to register the expense."
2. Tap it. If you can use One, One opens with Add your receipt: tap Take a photo, Select from gallery or Upload document.
3. One matches the receipt to your card payment, fills in the details, asks only for required fields it can't work out, and sends the expense for review (unless you ask to keep it as a draft).
4. Without One, the notification opens the draft: add the receipt, complete any required fields and tap Send for approval.

On the web: go to My spending > My expenses, open the card expense, add the receipt and click Send for approval.

How One matches a receipt to a card payment

One looks only at your own card expenses. A receipt matches a card payment when:

• Amount: it's exactly the same, to the cent, as the amount charged to the card or as the original amount in the merchant's currency. One never converts currencies.
• Date: within 3 hours of the payment when both have a time and time zone, otherwise within 2 days.
• Category: it doesn't clearly conflict with the payment's, for example a Meals receipt against an Airlines payment from an unrelated merchant.

On a match, One adds the receipt and fills in the VAT, description, category, project, cost centre and budget, and keeps the card's amount, currency and merchant. If nothing matches, One creates a separate manual expense and the card expense stays a draft.

Tips and Best Practices

Troubleshooting and FAQ

Troubleshooting

• One created a separate manual expense instead of matching my card payment. The receipt's amount, date or category didn't match the card payment, often because of a tip added after the card was charged, or a receipt in a currency that is neither the card's nor the merchant's. Delete the manual expense (see How do I delete an expense?) and add the receipt to the card expense (see How do I attach a receipt to an expense?), so the purchase isn't reported twice.
• I created an expense by hand for a card payment. Do the same: delete the manual expense and add the receipt to the card expense, so nobody is paid twice.
• I can't change the amount of a card expense. The amount, currency and merchant come from the card payment. If the merchant refunded part of it, see A merchant refunded a card payment. How does it show in Expenses?.
• A payment didn't create an expense. Declined payments and refunds never create an expense. See A card payment is missing in Factorial. Where is it?.
• The notification didn't arrive. Check that New card payment is on in your notification settings. It's a push notification on your phone, never an email. The expense is created either way.
• "Review your expense details" with "Missing required field". Your company requires a field that's still empty. Fill it in, then send the expense.
• The amount of an approved card expense changed. If the merchant's final amount differs from the first one (a hotel or petrol station, for example), the card expense takes the final amount, even after approval. Its status doesn't change.

FAQ

1. When is the card expense created?

When the payment is authorised, before the merchant settles it, so a payment that is still Withheld already has its expense.

2. Which cards create expenses?

Only Factorial cards issued for Expenses. Cards for Software, Procurement or Benefits don't create expenses.

3. Does One attach the receipt to the exact payment I was notified about?

One matches the receipt by its own content (amount, date and category), not by the notification, and looks only at your own card expenses. If you have several card drafts, it goes to the one it matches.

4. What if several card payments match the same receipt?

A payment in the receipt's currency wins over one matched on the merchant's original currency. After that, the closest merchant name wins. Each card payment takes only one receipt.

5. Does One ask me for the project or cost centre?

Only when your company made that field mandatory in the expense form and One can't work it out. It can also ask for budget, internal reference, subcategory, merchant tax ID or document number. For a card payment it never asks how you paid.

6. How do I stop One matching a receipt to my card?

Tell One you paid personally or in cash. It then creates a manual expense to pay back to you.

7. The receipt is in euros and my card was charged in pounds. Which amount does the expense keep?

The card's. One matches on the original euro amount and keeps the amount, currency and merchant from the card.

8. Does an approved card expense go back to review when the amount changes?

No. The expense takes the final charged amount and stays Approved. If the merchant cancels the payment, its status changes to Payment reversed.

9. Can cardholders edit a card expense?

Yes, everything except the amount, currency and merchant.

10. Do card expenses follow the same approval flow?

Yes. They go through your approval flow and Expense checks like any other expense.

11. Which legal entity does a card expense belong to?

The legal entity of the card's bank account, not the employee's.

12. How do I see which card paid an expense, or only card expenses?

Open the expense: the Payment method row shows the card, for example Factorial card · Physical card *5678. In Spending > Employee expenses, filter Expense type by Factorial Card, add the Payment method column to see the card type and last four digits, and combine with Owner or Project. To see every payment of a card, including those that didn't create an expense, go to Treasury > Cards, open the card and check Card payments.

13. Do declined payments create an expense?

No. Only accepted payments do. The cardholder is notified when a payment is declined because of the card's limits or a lack of funds.

14. Several people use one shared card. How do we track who each expense was for?

A card belongs to one person, so all its payments become that person's expenses. The cardholder can say who or what each one was for in the description or the project. If several people spend regularly, give each of them their own card.

15. Which payment method should I use for a prepaid card that isn't a Factorial card?

Use Corporate debit card: the company paid, so it isn't reimbursed. Factorial card is filled in automatically for Factorial card payments and can't be chosen by hand.

16. Can I delete a card expense?

No, a card expense with an amount can't be deleted because it records a real payment. Delete only the manual expense you created by mistake.

17. Why is the amount on my expense different from the price at checkout?

The expense takes the amount and currency charged to your card. If the merchant charged in another currency, or added a tip or a final amount later, it can differ from the first figure you saw.

18. Where do I find a record that a card payment was made?

Every payment is recorded on the card's Card payments tab with its merchant, amount, date and status (Completed once it has gone through). Cardholders open it from My spending > My cards. Finance can also open the cards account in Treasury > Accounts and click Export transactions.