Year-end corporate card best practices to unlock supplier savings

In Q4, your company’s finance leaders may think about spending less. But it’s actually a smart time to drive up spend volume – if you do it strategically with corporate card best practices. Case in point: your suppliers are undoubtedly looking to boost revenue, which makes year-end an ideal time to secure cost-saving incentives.

Put the following card program strategies into action to capture savings from supplier rebates to strengthen your year-end cash position.

Consolidate fragmented spending

Like many Series A companies, you might have spending spread across your corporate card, ACH and checks, plus personal card reimbursements. To simplify payments and avoid leaving money on the table, consider consolidating expenses onto a single company card. It may immediately shift your vendor spend volumes into higher rebate tiers to capture more savings.

Identify your top expense categories and suppliers, and transition that spend to your corporate card. Also look for opportunities to consolidate vendors, such as SaaS subscriptions and office or lab supplies. It helps you better track and control those expenses, avoid unnecessary overlaps, and take advantage of volume-based discounts.

Pre-pay strategic expenses for early payment discounts

Think about essential services that your business relies on daily, like cloud data storage and productivity software. Many enterprise SaaS providers and suppliers offer significant discounts for annual prepayment, so consider paying in December for next year.

Using your corporate card to pre-pay major annual expenses in Q4 delivers multiple financial advantages:

• Save with lower vendor rates through early payment discounts
• Stack up cash back or reward points sooner
• Benefit from the float of your card’s extended payment terms

This approach strengthens year-end cash optimization and positions your company for better Q1 liquidity.

Implement tiered rebate incentives

Your supply chain partners may be willing to offer rebates if you shift more spend their way. For this corporate card best practice, engage your top 3-5 vendors with a proposal for tiered rebates based on payment volume, with specific year-end targets.

Implementing a structured rebate program with clear volume thresholds is a win-win for both parties. Your suppliers get more of your business, and your company increases savings with higher rebates as your spending grows.

It’s helpful to start this initiative in Q4. That’s when you already have a strong idea of your annual spend and projections for next year, as the basis for your tiered incentive proposals.

Activate underutilized corporate cards

Are all your previously issued company cards being actively used? Often times, company cards are underutilized or dormant, especially if employees default to using personal cards and getting reimbursed. In Q4, review cardholder activity to identify opportunities to re-activate usage and shift appropriate spend to your card program.

As part of this corporate card best practice, provide simple spending guidelines for team leads. It helps ensure employees understand which types of expenses can be put on their company card. Activating under-used cards increases your control and visibility and reduces out-of-policy spend. And equally important, it enables you to gain the benefits of higher volumes on your corporate card, including those year-end supplier rebates.

Ready to optimize your corporate card payment strategies? Learn how SVB corporate cards with AI-powered spend management give you more agility to drive growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can consolidating spending on corporate cards improve year-end cash flow?

Consolidating vendor expenses onto a single corporate card helps companies reach higher rebate tiers and maximize cash back or reward points, which support better year-end cash flow. For companies that spend $1-5M annually with key vendors, this card payment strategy might generate $10K-50K in cost-saving rebates, while enabling a 30–60-day payment float.

Why should growth companies prepay annual expenses in Q4? 

Pre-paying strategic annual expenses (like SaaS subscriptions and insurance premiums) in Q4 gives companies key advantages to improve year-end cash position. It’s an effective corporate card strategy to capture early-pay discounts from vendors and accelerate cash back or reward points before year-end. Plus, it adds that spend to the current year’s tax deductions while providing card float so the business doesn’t have to outlay cash until later in Q1.

What are tiered rebate incentives and how do they work as a corporate card strategy?

Tiered rebate incentives are agreements where vendors offer customers increasing rebates based on specific spend thresholds. Companies can negotiate rebates with their top suppliers, such as 1% on first $500K spent, 1.5% on next $500K, 2% above $1M, etc. The business can then drive-up volumes by consolidating vendor spend on their corporate card, including activating underutilized cards. This card payment strategy is particularly effective in Q4 when companies can accelerate planned Q1 purchases to cross into higher rebate tiers.