Establishing Your Settlement Account
In order to offer cards to your employees, you must first establish a "Settlement Account". This is basically a non-interest bearing bank account that your company establishes at Armstrong Bank, who is our card issuer. All employee card transactions will draw from this single, employer owned, central account.
These are debit cards, and thus funds must be in your account, or card swipes will fail for lack of funds. Generally, the goal is to fund the account at a level that will allow for expected card activity but not have too much extra cash just sitting in the account.
To try to meet this goal, we establish 2 parameters (which can be adjusted at any time), the MINIMUM BALANCE and the REPLENISHMENT AMOUNT. They work together to keep adequate funds in your SETTLEMENT ACCOUNT, while keeping your cash tied up to a minimum.
The Minimum Balance
This is the settlement account balance threshold, such that when transactions reduce your overall balance below this amount, it will automatically initiate a Replenishment Request. Typically, your minimum balance is set at around 10% of your overall collective employee benefit balances.
The Replenishment Amount
This is the dollar amount that is requested to be put back in, or "replenished" to your settlement account any time your account drops below the minimum balance. Note, the smaller the replenishment amount, the more frequent you will get replenishment requests. The larger the replenishment amount, the further above the minimum balance threshold you get, thus extending the time between replenishment requests.
Funding Your Settlement Account
The settlement account needs funds for cards to operate. So, how do we fund that account. We offer 3 methods, however the most common and recommended form is via an EFT from one of your general operating accounts.
An EFT allows for next (business) day replenishment of the account, thus supporting lower overall cash balances, while still maintaining enough funds to cover expected transactions. There is no charge for this method.
We also accept check or wire replenishments, however the check process takes much more time (at least a week) to replenish, and both the wire and the check processing carries a transaction fee.
In closing, this is an account you own, you will be able to see all bank activity via our secure website, and should you discontinue cards, the account will be closed and balance returned to you. A SETTLEMENT APPLICATION form will need to be returned to us to open your account.