Budgets organize virtual cards and allocate funds by project, department, client, location, or any expense category. What makes the budget feature unique is that you can share a budget with your team so they can create and send their own virtual cards within the budget limit. It’s a powerful feature that gives you and your team added flexibility around managing virtual cards.

Here are three ways you and your team can benefit from budgets:

💪 Empower your team to create and send virtual cards on demand from a pre-approved budget.
💳 Co-manage a budget so more than one person can approve and create virtual cards.
🌴 Allow another teammate to temporarily manage cards and requests while you're on vacation.

Watch the video to learn more about how budgets can work for your company.

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How does it work?

📍Any registered cardholder can create budgets from the Create New button and manage them from the Budgets page.

• First, create a budget and define the spending limit for a department, project, location, etc.
• Share it with anyone who requires access to the budget—up to 10 people. These folks then become the “budget users” with you as the “budget creator.”
• Budget users can create, send, update, and deactivate virtual cards as needed, and you get real-time visibility over all budget activity

Note: Only the user who created a budget can edit the spending limit and controls. At this time, the Owner, Admins, and Bookkeepers do not have permission to edit budgets they did not create.

🔎 Did you know? Folks on your team can also request a budget—say for a project they’re managing or for business travel. Simply select “Request a budget” from the Create New button and fill out the request details.

Types of budgets

Extend offers three types of budgets to fit different business needs. With any budget, when funds run out, you can’t create more virtual cards from that budget. But you can update the budget limit, controls, and users at any time.

Standard budget: A standard budget has a set spend limit. Anyone with access to a standard budget can create as many virtual cards as needed within the set limit. This budget is ideal for project-based spending.

‍Recurring budget: A recurring budget has a limit that you can schedule to automatically reset funds at your chosen frequency—daily, weekly, or monthly. Any remaining balances will not roll over as the budget resets to the original limit. This is a great option to sync with recurring subscriptions or monthly travel expenses.

‍Unlimited budget: An unlimited budget does not have a set spend limit—the budget is only limited by the credit limit of its funding source (the bank-issued registered card). This budget is ideal for cases in which you want someone else to manage virtual card payments.

💡For example, you might send the finance manager an unlimited budget. This way, they can easily pay bills from your card, while you still have full visibility— eliminating the need for physical card-sharing or having to approve every virtual card request.

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FAQs

How many people can you assign to a single budget?
Up to 10 people can share a budget at one time. You may add and remove budget users at any time.

Can I send a budget to someone outside of my organization?
No, for greater security and control, budgets are a feature exclusive to your organization in Extend.

Can you re-assign virtual cards from one budget to another?
Virtual cards cannot be reassigned from one budget to another. You would have to deactivate the original virtual card and create a new one under the correct budget.