Manage cards
Overview
The Cards tab on the Tipalti Hub is where you create physical and virtual cards, and manage your cards and transactions. Specific user roles are required to view your virtual account balance and credit line, enable the ERP sync for Cards, view sync issues, and view your payees paid by Cards.
In the Tipalti Hub, the Cards tab consists of two subtabs:
- Active Cards — Lists all currently active cards and allows you to add new cards (with Create cards user role) and manage existing ones
- Card Transactions — Shows all card transactions in the system and allows you to process transactions (with Process transactions user role)
Both tabs also include new filters, plus download and search, so you can find specific cards or transactions faster.
In the Tipalti Hub, the Active Cards subtab allows you to add new cards, update and search existing ones.
Add, view, and update cards
Cards can be added by finance or requested by employees. Select the relevant option for details.
Add new virtual cards
Required user permission Create Cards
To add a new card in the Tipalti Hub, go to Cards > Add new card.
Select the virtual card you want to create (Bills Card or Expenses Card) and complete the following steps. To learn more about different card types, go to Tipalti Cards.
Step 1. Assign a payee
- In the Payee text box, type the first few characters of the payee's name and then select the relevant payee from the list that displays. If the payee does not exist in the list, add a new payee to the card.
- In the What are you purchasing? text box, enter the purchases designated for this card.
- Click Next.
For a virtual Bills Card, follow the same steps. When assigning the card, select a single payee that sends invoices. You can also select which of your entities will make payments to this card.
Step 2. Set budget limits
Budget owners can access the Cards tab to view cards, card budgets, and card transactions for cards under their budget.
- In the Expected spend field, enter the amount expected to be spent and select the currency and the frequency.
- In the Who is going to use the card? field, type the name of the employee in your organization who will be using the card.
- In the Budget owner field, enter the name of the employee who is responsible for the budget.
- Click Next.
Step 3. Configure coding
- Associate the card with default coding values. These values will be auto-populated on the card transactions.
- If you have multiple entities, associate the card with the preferred entity (see Funds flow for further details).
- To bypass the receipt requirement for all transactions on this card, select the Skip receipt for employee checkbox. This option is off by default.
- If the transactions require the cardholder coding and review, select the Card holder review checkbox.
- Click Create.
Add new physical cards
Required user role Create Cards
To add a new physical card, in the Tipalti Hub, go to Cards > Add new card.
Select the Physical Expenses Card and complete the following steps.
Step 1. Set budget limits
Budget owners can access the Cards tab to view cards, card budgets, and card transactions for cards under their budget.
- In the Expected spend field, enter the amount expected to be spent and select the currency and the frequency.
- In the Who is going to use the card? field, type the name of the employee in your organization who will be using the card.
- In the Budget owner field, enter the name of the employee who is responsible for the budget.
- Click Create.
Step 2. Configure coding
- In the Description field, enter a description for the card.
- To automatically copy this description to the Memo field in your ERP for every transaction on this card, select Apply description to all transactions. Leave it unchecked for cards used across multiple merchants. This setting is off by default for physical cards. Changes apply to new transactions only — if a cardholder manually edits a transaction's memo, their edit overrides the card-level description for that transaction.
- Associate the card with default coding values. These values will be auto-populated on the card transactions.
- If you have multiple entities, associate the card with the preferred entity (see Funds flow for further details).
- If the transactions require the cardholder coding and review, select the Cardholder review checkbox.
- If you have filled in all your organization's mandatory fields, select the Skip transaction reviews for this card checkbox.
- Click Create.
Step 3. Shipping address
The shipping address can be entered by the card holder or the finance team on behalf of the card holder.
- On the Active cards tab, click the new card. The info panel is displayed stating that the shipping address was not yet updated by the card holder.
- To update the shipping address on behalf of the card holder, click the link and enter the shipping address.
- As you type, address suggestions appear automatically — select your address from the list to complete the field.
View and update cards
View card details
On the Active Cards page, you can view transaction history, utilized budget, and, if you're also the cardholder, the card's sensitive details:
Click a card. The side panel opens with the card details:
Update cards
Required user role Create Cards
On the Active Cards page:
- Find the relevant card, click
, and select the action you want to perform:
- Send card details — Sends card details to the card holder
- Change card holder — Switches the ownership of the card from the current card holder to a new one
- Change budget owner — Switches the budget owner
-
Lock card — Deactivates the card and changes the card status to Inactive
-
Unlock card — Reactivates a locked card and changes the card status to Active
- Cancel card — Cancels the card and removes it from the list
To view or update the details of the card, click the relevant card to open the Card details right-panel. It displays transaction history, utilized budget, and, if you're also the cardholder, the card's sensitive details:
- Click
- Click the pencil icon to edit the card details.
- Click Save.
Once a card is locked, any new transactions made with that card will be declined until the card is unlocked. Locking cards can be used for lost or stolen cards, subscription ends, suspected misuse, or missing receipts. Cardholders can unlock cards they locked themselves, but if a finance admin or budget owner locks a card, only they can unlock it.
Update card types
You can change the card type of Tipalti-issued virtual cards (for example, from Bills Card to Expenses Card and vice versa). This helps finance teams correct exceptions more easily, such as when a card was used for the wrong purpose or a one-off expense. Note that the payee and entity must be the same on a bill and card transaction to be able to match them.
To change a card type:
- Go to Manage Cards in the Tipalti Hub.
- Find the card that you'd like to change.
- Click the three-dot actions menu next to the card.
- Click Change to Expenses Card or Change to Bills Card, depending on the existing card type.
- In the dialog, fill in the details of the new card. Once done, you'll see a confirmation that the card type was updated and future transactions will go through the new flow.
What happens when virtual cards expire?
Tipalti automatically renews your virtual card so your payments continue without needing to wait for a new card to be issued.
- The expiration date extends by an additional 3 years.
- Your Tipalti card numbers remain unchanged and the CVV is updated for security.
- Tipalti will automatically update vendors who opted in to receive card detail updates, so you can continue making payments seamlessly.
Auto-complete or set requirements
Card transaction settings apply to expense cards (physical and virtual) and control how transactions are processed for a specific card. Settings apply to all future transactions for the card and are configured when creating or editing a card.
Under Card transaction settings, choose how transactions are handled:
-
Require — Specify which combination of the following to enforce before a transaction reaches Completed status:
- Cardholder review — The cardholder must review the transaction.
- Finance team review — A finance team member must review the transaction.
- Receipt upload — A receipt must be attached. This overrides any minimum amount for collecting receipts in your Card settings.
- Auto-complete — Transactions are completed without reviews or receipt uploads required. To skip finance team review, complete all required fields (Payee, Expense account, AP account) when creating or editing the card — values are automatically sent to your ERP per transaction.
Completing all coding fields on a card set to Auto-complete creates a no-touch path to Completed status — useful for high-volume card programs.
List and grid views
You can switch between list or grid view to manage your cards. The list view makes it easier to view multiple cards, sort by issuer, card type, and other filters, and export as a list.
The Active cards table also shows Department and Project columns, so you can see this context at a glance, or filter and sort by either field.
Under the Expense card transactions tab, you can view and manage all your Expense cards, as well as update transaction types or payees.
Under the Bills card transactions tab, you can view and manage all your Bills cards, as well as update transaction types or payees.
Saved views
Saved views are one-click filters at the top of the Active Cards tab that instantly scope the card list. Select a view to filter the list — no need to rebuild filters manually on each visit.
- All — Shows all active cards.
- Unassigned cards — Shows cards that have not yet been assigned to a cardholder.
- Over budget cards — Shows cards where spend has exceeded the assigned budget.
- Only my cards — Shows cards where you are the cardholder or budget owner.
Saved views work alongside the Add filter, Issuer, and Card type filters — you can combine them to narrow results further.
Additional actions
There are other actions that can be performed, such as migrating cards via CSV, searching cards, and more.
Add a new payee while creating a card
Required user role Create Cards & Add Payee
You can choose to add a new payee in Tipalti while you're in the card creation process.
- Go to Active Cards and click Add new card.
- In the Create new virtual cards dialog, click
to add a payee.
-
In the Create a payee dialog, do the following:
- In the Payee name field, enter the name of the payee.
- If you have multiple entities, in the Payer entity field, select the relevant entity from the list.
- Click + Add payee.
Bulk migrate existing cards via a CSV file
You can migrate existing cards to Tipalti by sending a CSV file in a predefined format that contains the card details required for setup. Available for US and UK-based payers, Tipalti can create cards in bulk from a file, reducing the time required to recreate cards one by one when moving them to Tipalti. Contact your Tipalti rep to request the predefined CSV template.
Add a new employee while creating a card
Required user role Create Cards
You can choose to add a new employee in Tipalti while you're in the card creation process.
- Go to Active Cards and click Add new card.
- In the Create new virtual cards dialog, enter the Payee name and What are you purchasing?. Click Next.
- Enter the Expected spend.
- In the Who is going to use the card? field, type the first letter of the employee's name and click + Add to add the new employee.
-
In the Create employee dialog, do the following:
- In the Full name field, enter the employee's first and last name.
- In the Email field, enter the employee's email.
- In the Title field, enter the employee's title.
- Click + Add employee.
Skip coding review
During the card creation process, or when editing an existing card, you can indicate whether coding reviews of that specific card should be skipped by selecting the Skip transaction reviews for this card checkbox.
A review can be skipped if:
- All the mandatory fields have been defined.
- The receipt is auto-matched or defined as not required according to your receipt policy.
Replace budget owner
Required user role Create Cards
On the Active Cards page:
- Find the relevant card, click
- In the New budget owner field, type the name or email of the new budget owner and select it from the populated list.
- Click Confirm.
Remove a third-party card
You can remove a third-party card from the Tipalti Hub using the three-dot menu, which hides the card while keeping previous transactions visible to support cleanup when a card is no longer needed.
Search cards
On the Active Cards page, you can use the following identifiers to search for cards:
- Payee associated with the card
- Card holder name
- Budget owner name
- Department name
- Last 4
In addition to the search box, there are filters for Issuer, Card type, and Payer entity, so you can find the right cards and related activity. Card types include Virtual Bills Card, Virtual Expenses Card, Physical Expenses Card, and (if applicable) External issuer.