The AICPA 2000 Corporate Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results

We are pleased to present the AICPA 2000 Corporate Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results. This is one othe most comprehensive independent examinations of organizational use of purchasing cards to date.

The objective of the Benchmark Survey is to provide purchasing card using organizations and their card issuers with information that will help them to maximize the benefits they receive from using or providing the card. The information in this booklet is based on the responses of 329 purchasing card using customers of 14 major financial institutions. The information contained in this document includes:

• Analyses and highlights of current trends in purchasing card use

• Benchmark data to evaluate purchasing card program success, broken down within corporate (by size and industry) and not-for-profit sectors (by university, city and county government, and state and federal agencies)

• Critical examination and emphasis of factors critical to the success of purchasing card programs

• Projections of future trends in and opportunities for purchasing card use

Our analysis of survey data also attempts to capture the dynamics of purchasing card progress in the marketplace. Financial institutions began marketing purchasing cards in the late 1980s as a solution to the blizzard of paperwork associated with the traditional goods acquisition and payment process. The growth of the purchasing card market in the past 10 years has been strong, but not as strong as had been originally anticipated. Both card issuers and users have had to ride learning curves associated with the nuances of industry practices, governmental regulations, tax laws, accounting and reporting systems, human resource practices, and organizational cultures.

The efforts of card issuers and users to integrate the purchasing card into the procure-to-pay process have paid off for many organizations. It is no longer uncommon to find an organization that shifts hundreds of thousands of low-dollar transactions per year to the purchasing card. The purchasing card product has expanded beyond “Fortune 500” operations to include smaller corporate entities and a wide variety of not-for-profit institutions.

More recently, exciting developments in technology present new opportunities for and challenges to the role of purchasing cards in business operations. E-procurement systems and Internet exchanges, auctions, and purchasing consortia present new ways by which organizations can locate suppliers, identify goods, compare prices, and place orders. The payment method for purchases made using new technologies is not yet certain, but our analysis of current perspectives on payment alternatives reveals that the market continues to favor purchasing cards.

If you have any questions about the survey or would like to acquire a complete copy of the AICPA 2000 Corporate Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results, contact Professor Richard Palmer, Eastern Illinois University, by phone (217/581–8308) or e-mail (inksling@midwest.net).