Tide Expense Cards UK: Cost and Features

Expense cards allow businesses to give their employees easy ways to spend on behalf of the company, up to pre-agreed limits, and without wasting time on admin. Tide Expense Cards¹ can be issued to up to 50 employees, to offer easy expense management tools, account reconciliation and tracking.

If you’re considering getting business expense cards for your team, read on for all you need to know about Tide cards - and an alternative for comparison, the Wise Business Expense Card.

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📝 Table of contents:
What is a Tide Expense Card? Tide Expense Cards main features Cost and fees for Tide Expense Cards Alternative to Tide Expense Cards Manage international employee expenses with Wise Business

What is a Tide Expense Card?

Tide is a UK based digital finance platform with a focus on sole traders, freelancers and small business services. It’s been around since 2015, and it’s popular with its users, getting a 4.3 out of 5 star from over 12,000 reviews on Trustpilot.²

The Tide platform offers a range of solutions for companies and freelancers, but this article will cover specifically the Tide Expense Card, which is a type of card exclusively used for business expenses, and that allows its users to manage business purchases easily.

Business expense cards - benefits

In general, offering team members an expense card can make their lives easier as they can automatically bill business purchases back to the company rather than going through an admin heavy claim process.

By giving employees business expense cards you’re giving them the tools to do their jobs, removing admin for both the employee and the accounting team, and retaining the ability to set, review and manage expense costs on a micro and macro level.

If you have a Tide account already you can order Tide Expense Cards easily in the app³. All you need to do is to add the team member’s details, and which Tide account you want their card to be linked to.

As long as the team member passes Tide’s security checks, the card will be sent out to you. There’s a fee to get and maintain Tide Expense Cards - but depending on which Tide account plan you’re on, you may find that one or more expense cards are offered free.

Manage your business expenses across currencies, with Wise

Tide isn’t the only provider out there offering innovative accounts and services for businesses. If you have customers, suppliers or staff overseas, you cut the costs of currency conversion with the Wise Business Account and the Wise Business Expense Card.

Wise Business multi-currency account allows you to hold and exchange 50+ currencies, with the real mid-market rate, and low transaction fees for the services you need. You can also get local bank account details for 10 major currencies. Pair this agile business account with the Wise Business Expense Card, and you and your entire team could save time and money. More on this a little later.

Get Wise Business Account

Tide Expense Cards main features

Let’s move on to a review of the key features of Tide Expense Cards:

• Issue Tide Expense Cards to up to 50 people
• Set and manage card limits to keep a full view of business costs
• Reconcile Tide Card spending with your preferred cloud accounting software
• Track and analyse spending by employee and spend type
• Upload receipts into the Tide app to limit admin time
• Freeze and unfreeze cards in the Tide app

Who can manage Tide Expense Cards?

If you have a Tide account, as manager you’ll be able to order, view and manage your team expense cards from the Tide app. Options include:

• Order cards for new team members
• Order replacement cards as needed
• Set account limits
• View spending by individual and category
• Freeze and cancel cards
• Share and hold PIN codes
• Employees can upload and automatically match receipts
• Sync your Tide account and expense cards with Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage or KashFlow accounting software

Cost and fees for Tide Expense Cards

The exact costs for getting Tide Expense Cards will vary based on the type of Tide Account you have⁴. As well as standard business accounts, you can get Tide Plus, Cashback and Premium accounts, which come with additional monthly fees. However, these accounts also unlock extra perks - including free or discounted expense cards for your team:

Account and Tide expense comparison⁴

Expense cards - service fees	Standard businesses	Tide Plus businesses	Tide Cashback and Premium businesses
Issue Expense card	£5 + VAT	1st issued expense card is free, £5 + VAT for each card after that	First 3 issued expense cards are free, £5 + VAT for each card after that
Monthly fee for expense card	£5 + VAT	1st issued expense card is free, £5 + VAT monthly for each card after that	First 3 issued expense cards are free, £5 + VAT monthly for each card after that
Card purchase	Free	Free	Free
ATM withdrawal in any currency	£1 per withdrawal (ATM provider may also charge a fee)	£1 per withdrawal (ATM provider may also charge a fee)	£1 per withdrawal (ATM provider may also charge a fee)

Alternative to Tide Expense Cards

Tide Expense Cards can offer convenient ways to manage employee expenses - but they’re not the only option. Alternative business account providers may be a good bet, particularly if your business transacts internationally often.

In this case, a Wise Business Account could help you cut the costs of currency conversion - and the Wise Business Expense Card can then help you and your employees save time when making purchases on behalf of the company - at home or abroad.

Wise Business Expense cards

UK businesses and entrepreneurs could find that the Wise Business Expense Card gives them all the tools needed to make employee expenses effortless. And with Wise Account you may also cut the costs of transactions in a foreign currency.

Open your Wise account for a one time fee of 45 GBP, and then order expense cards for just 3 GBP each. There are no ongoing fees or subscription charges - just low, transparent transaction costs for the services you and your team actually need.

Tide Expense Cards vs. Wise Business expense cards

Service/fee	Tide Expense Cards	Wise Business expense cards
Opening account fee	Free	£45 one time charge
Issue card fee	£5 + VAT for standard account holders	£3 one time charge for each card
Monthly user fee	£5 + VAT for standard account holders	No monthly fee
Spend with the card	Mastercard's exchange rate will apply⁵	Free
ATM withdrawals	£1	2 withdrawals, to value of £200/month fee free Then £0.5+ 1.75%

Manage international employee expenses with Wise Business

With the Wise Business Expense Card you can manage employee daily expenses simply and focus your attention instead, on business performance and growth.

Check out the Wise Business Account to help your business go global. Pay suppliers and staff overseas with the mid-market exchange rate, and get paid by customers like a local. Hold and exchange 50+ currencies in your account, so you’ll always have the currency you need to make payments, when you need it.

Get Wise Business Account

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Business expense cards - from Tide or an alternative provider like Wise - allow your employees to do their jobs more easily, reduce the admin burden, and could even help you save costs. Check out the Tide Expense Card UK against a few alternatives, including Wise Business Accounts, to see which will suit you and your team best.

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Sources used for this article:

1. Tide Expense Cards
2. Trustpilot - Tide
3. Tide - FAQ
4. Tide terms
5. Tide - FAQ - Will I be charged for using my card abroad?

Sources checked on 06-09-2022.