Reasons to Get a Business Credit Card

There are a lot of reasons to get a business credit card. Here we offer the Top 5.

1. Credit building. Business credit cards don’t sit on your personal report and they help build your business credit history. Your personal credit will be used to approve you for a business credit card, but it doesn’t typically sit on your personal credit report. These are a great way to establish a business credit history that will help you move your business forward by improving access to funding.

2. Generally higher credit limits than personal cards. This increases your business’ spending power. Most business have higher and more frequent expenses than regular consumers. Therefore, the higher the limit, the more a business can finance without worrying about maxing out the card.

3. Simplify accounting. Keep track of expenses much easier. Texas Bay’s Platinum Business Mastercard comes with SpendTrack®, an online and mobile-based app that allows you to track your business expenses by category. This makes it much easier come tax time.

4. Streamline employee expenses. Keep tabs on employee spending habits. You can clearly see who is spending the most and on what. Set up spending limits on individual cards, then monitor their spending in SpendTrack®. Additionally, SpendTrack allows you to cut off cards, reset pin numbers, and more.

5. Easier than loan qualification. Quite often, the process for getting a business credit card is faster and less of a hassle than obtaining a formal small business loan. This is especially true if you don’t have significant collateral, which is often required by lenders for either a traditional loan or a business line of credit.

In addition to these reasons, Texas Bay offers the following benefits on our Platinum Business Mastercard:

• Through Mastercard and Texas Bay: о Earn 1.5 points for every $1 spent о Digital Merchant Offers о East Savings Program о ID Theft Protection о Global Service о MasterRental Insurance Coverage

• Through SpendTrack®: о Lock cards о Reset PINs о Replace cards о Close cards о Manage user access о Obtain expense information broken down by categories

What is your advice on how to run a successful small business?

Jeremy Bratton VP of Training & Compliance

Building and running a successful small business is no easy task and usually requires continual learning in order to maintain a competitive edge. Fortunately, there are a ton of free resources and online tools to assist in planning, funding, networking and more. To celebrate Small Business Month, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite small business resources to help improve your company and expand your business.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a government agency that offers a large variety of resources. Whether you’re in the business planning stages or need to find funding to grow your already established business, the SBA has the tools to help. The SBA also partners with Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) to offer free and low-cost training and business counseling services to support first-time business owners or assist in growing existing businesses. Visit their website to locate one of the five Houston-area based centers.

Services Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) is a nonprofit partner of the SBA that specializes in offering mentoring services and other resources to help aspiring small business owners. They have one of the nation’s largest networks of volunteer, business mentors who were former business owners themselves and have the experience, knowledge and training to help you succeed.

Entrepreneur.com is an informational site provided by the publishers of Entrepreneur Magazine that offers a host of resources to help educate yourself and keep up with trends. Included on the site are free webinars and advice that you can browse by topic such as growing a business, marketing, social media, and money and finance. If you are interested in purchasing a franchise, they even have information to assist in the process. And if you find their content to be particularly useful and engaging, you can purchase a subscription to access their premium content for a relatively low price.

Chelly DeLeon VP of Human Resources

With summer coming up, you may be looking to build up your team for the busy season. The problem is that big or small, companies are not getting enough applicants for the open positions. As the war for talent becomes more intense, one of the tools that can help a company is having a wellbuilt paid internship program for high school and college students. It takes time to build but it is important to start now so that you can get ahead of the curve. A good starting point is to engage with high school and college career counselors. They are great resources. They help spread the word by posting jobs on school job boards, career fairs, and social media. Also, companies should consider opening up the summer internship program to family and friends. Again, this helps by spreading the word about the program! Creating a program dedicated to helping high school students connect with employers is a win for both students and employers in the short and long terms.

Chauncey Onyon VP of Technology

When it comes to cyber security, the simplest rules always apply. Be diligent with the use of strong passwords. Always be careful of what you write down or share with others. And always, always, always opt-in to Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) when offered. It’s important to ensure critical business data is backed up, preferably in a manner that is outside of your network. This can be achieved using a cloud storage solution or even an external hard drive that you keep disconnected when you’re not performing backups. Proper antivirus and anti-malware protection continue to be a vital tool to protect against attacks. As attackers find new and innovative ways to infect a network, having these products and keeping them up to date remains one of the best weapons against an attack. Antivirus products are prevalent in the market today, and you can find them just about anywhere, but the quality can vary, so do your research to find the best product for you.

Consider utilizing a VPN service. These are growing in popularity quickly, especially with people who frequently use public or unsecured Wi-Fi or hotspots to access the internet. Additionally, these can be useful even in a home or office setting to grant an added level of protection. Like the recommendation for antivirus, VPN services are a dime a dozen these days, so it’s essential to research your options, as some of these services can hinder the functionality of other software platforms you may use. Be wary of inbound phone calls, texts, and emails claiming to be from a financial institution. Attackers have developed ways to impersonate or “spoof” banks and credit unions, even down to mimicking the FI’s phone number on caller ID. If you’re ever concerned that the communication in question may be fraudulent, I would strongly recommend contacting the institution directly using the methods posted on their website or the back of your debit card. This will ensure you’re contacting them directly and not a bad actor. Being vigilant with your business’ data and customers’ information has never been more critical than it is today. Well-respected companies have seen their reputations take a hit due to a breach or data loss in recent years. It’s vital to ensure you do all you can to prevent that happening to your business.

Charlotte Yocom VP of Marketing & Business Development

Marketing is essential for any business to grow and thrive, but as a small business, finding enough in the budget for marketing can become a challenge. Yet without it, how do you promote your business? Luckily, there is good news. There are plenty of ways to market your business to consumers without spending much money.

Below are a few of the free and low-cost marketing channels:

1. Create a FREE Google My Business account – this allows your business to appear on Google Maps in the local section of Google Search.

•To show up higher in searches, you need to optimize your Business Profile by verifying ownership of it. This is done through your Google My Business account.

•Encourage customers to leave you reviews; the more you receive, the more consumers see your business as the go-to for their needs.

2. Social Media – we all know we need it, but how many regularly post and engage on your business profile? Make sure you are active and proactive on your business’s social media accounts.

•Remember to tag others and use hashtags appropriately to gain even more views.

3. Take part in local events. Let your business be seen in your community with a booth at local events. Keep your eye out for these free and low-cost opportunities.

•For instance, Texas Bay hosts free pop-up events throughout the year at our branches, and we invite our local businesses to come out and set up a booth at no cost to further their reach within their communities. For more info on our pop-up schedule or how to join the next one, please email BizDev@ tbacu.org.