Top Benefits of the AmEx Blue Business Plus Credit Card

It can seem like there are nearly as many business credit cards out there as there are types of businesses. As a small-business owner, it's important to understand the individual aspects of each credit card and determine if it meets your needs.

One such card to consider is The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express. Here are the top business benefits it has to offer.

» Learn more: AmEx Blue Business Plus review: Simple rewards, unique features

Free employee cards

Employee cards streamline the expense and reimbursement process for you and your employees. With The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, you can get employee cards free of charge. This allows your employees to easily spend on business expenses while earning you rewards.

Employee cards come with spending limits. You can limit the total dollar amount of transactions per card, making it simple to manage employee spending.

Business tools

Business expenses can add up quickly, making it important to be able to categorize spend and track expenses. Luckily, The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express offers some tools for this.

Expanded Buying Power is a feature that recognizes that business expenses are rarely static. This feature automatically creates buying power above your credit limit. The amount is determined based on credit card usage, payment history, credit record and other financial factors.

Cardholders also get access to Spend Manager, a mobile app that enables customers to manage their business expenses. Using the app, you can set spending limits, generate expense reports and take photos of receipts and match them to transactions. Tag or add notes to receipts with important information to help with reconciliation at the end of each month.

» Learn more: Who can apply for a small-business credit card?

Third party partnerships

Depending on the tools in use at your small business, The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express’ integration with third parties could be a huge bonus.

If you use QuickBooks for your accounting, you’ll appreciate that The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express integrates with QuickBooks. Simply enroll in Connect to QuickBooks from your American Express account. Whenever you take a picture of your receipt with the Spend Manager app, the receipt, along with any notes and tags, will go to your online account. You can even label your transactions with QuickBook categories.

The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express also comes with a free Basic Vendor Pay account. This allows you to pay vendors using a variety of methods, including check and ACH. You can send and receive your own invoices and receive data for reporting and reconciliation purposes.

Note: Sending payments by check or ACH will incur an additional per-transaction fee.

Reward accrual and redemption

With The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, you’ll earn 2 points per dollar spent on the first $50,000 each year. After $50,000 you will earn 1 point per $1 spent. Terms apply. This flat rate structure makes it easy to accrue points, regardless of your business’ spending patterns.

Reward redemption is flexible. You can redeem Membership Rewards points in several ways, including for travel through transfers to American Express’ airline and hotel partners as well as direct travel bookings. Alternately, you can redeem points for gift cards or pay with points at checkout.

If you’re looking for the benefit of straight cash back card, you’ll want to look for a different small-business card, such as The American Express Blue Business Cash™ Card.