Virtual Card Payments

Create and manage virtual card payments for commercial card programs directly from your application.

Overview

The Virtual Card Payments API issues suppliers with customized data tied to each B2B payment transaction. Account numbers can only be used within your defined parameters that dictate payee, amount and time frame, providing a higher degree of control and security than other payment methods.

Features

Create, cancel and close virtual card payments.
Manage credit limit, payment expiration and Precise Pay (exact match) security controls to prevent unwanted charges.
Modify payment parameters, including credit limit, payment start and expiration dates, supplier email and custom attributes for a given virtual card.
Retrieve virtual card data, including account number, payment expiration, available balance and other key payment details in real time and on demand.
Manage the remittance process with returned card information or provide the supplier email/ID from U.S. Bank Access® Online for remittance.

Workflow

Virtual Payments Workflow

Example use cases

Create a virtual card payment.

A customer service representative works for a company that pays for maintenance on vehicles they lease to their customers (suppliers). To pay for the vehicle maintenance, the company decides to use virtual cards from U.S. Bank. To retrieve them, the company connects to Access Online, using the Virtual Card Payments API. The representative receives a call from ABC Oil Shop, a mutual supplier. To retrieve a virtual card to pay ABC Oil Shop, the representative enters information such as the payment amount and customized fields to appear on their reconciliation report. If ABC Oil Shop is listed in their system as Supplier ID 1234, custom attributes can be added to the payment to reflect their Supplier ID.

Close an existing payment.

An accountant reviews a company's daily reconciliation report and notices Supplier XYZ only processed the last virtual card payment for $75 when they were expected to process $100. After speaking with the supplier, the accountant learns they have a $25 credit on their account from a previous overpayment. The accountant and the supplier agree to apply the credit to this payment and the existing virtual card payment can be closed. The company's AP system is connected to Access Online via API, so when the accountant logs into their AP system and closes out the payment, no further transactions can be processed.

Cancel an existing payment.

When reviewing the past week's virtual payments, an account representative noticed two payments for the exact same amount were sent to a supplier. After researching the payments further, the representative finds one payment was sent in error and needs to be canceled. The Virtual Card Payments API connects the accounting system to Access Online to request the duplicate payment be canceled. The system will validate if an authorization has been made and, if not, it can be canceled.

Requirements

U.S. Bank Corporate Travel Card, One Card or Purchasing Card clients must be set up on U.S. Bank Access Online using Visa or Mastercard networks only.

Restrictions

Visa and Mastercard card networks are supported in USD and CAD only.