FC Dallas reduces per diem process time by 85% with CommercePayments^® Prepaid Expense Cards.

Switching from cash automates and simplifies travel expenses.

FC DALLAS | DALLAS, TX

At an FC Dallas match, things move quickly. The Major League Soccer (MLS) team’s six-person finance department works to keep up the pace off the field, too.

It’s responsible for all accounting and finance functions for FC Dallas and its MLS NEXT Pro development team, North Texas SC. As a small but nimble department, it’s critical they are efficient. Team travel used to consume a lot of time — handling per diems for more than 40 people attending up to 25 away matches per year, including international travel. Additionally, North Texas SC travels to around 17 matches per season.

The challenges of cash

The department’s cash per diem practice was slowing them down. It entailed obtaining large amounts of cash directly from banks, manually counting each traveler’s per diem, and then hand-delivering it to them. The method proved unsustainable; it was incompatible with how the team wanted to operate. There were many bank challenges that posed significant liabilities.

• Manual, incompatible processes: There are often last-minute player changes due to injuries, illnesses or trades when FC Dallas travels during its nine-month season. The team even had a player trade between back-to-back matches on an international travel trip. Cash per diems aren’t adaptable in these real-world scenarios, leaving players in a bind. They would have to cover hundreds of dollars of per diem expenses out of their own pockets, which created more back-end paperwork for the finance department.
  
  
• Bank restrictions: When ordering such large sums of cash — sometimes more than $10,000 per week — the finance department incurred bank vault expenses. When the pandemic occurred, it became especially difficult to quickly obtain the large amounts and physically go to the bank.
  
  
• Risks and liabilities: The organization assumed great liability when employees transported thousands of dollars from the bank, as well as having the money in the office prior to team distribution. The option of ordering secured delivery would be an additional expense and time-consuming process.

“It became clear our cash per diems weren’t providing the flexibility the team needed,” said Skyler Daugherty, FC Dallas’s Controller. “We wanted to automate per diems to better serve our teams and make our department more efficient.”

A solution with Prepaid Expense Cards

FC Dallas untangled their complicated per diem system with CommercePayments® Prepaid Expense Cards. The Prepaid Expense Cards provide a flexible solution without bank hassles and organizational liabilities.

Travel funds are easily uploaded through the online portal at any time, giving the finance department the flexibility they need. If on-the-road changes occur to the team’s makeup, instant-issue temporary cards are available, and the finance department can simply upload funds for them from Dallas.¹ The CommercePayments® Prepaid Expense Cards are issued through Visa®, making them widely accepted worldwide which is a benefit for the team when traveling internationally. The finance team no longer orders large sums of cash, so they don’t pay for vault services and don’t have the risks associated with transporting money or holding it in the office.

Prepaid Expense Cards save 70 hours of time

After implementation, Daugherty soon realized significant time savings using CommercePayments® Prepaid Expense Cards. FC Dallas and North Texas SC collectively travel to more than 40 matches per season. It typically took him two hours to prepare cash per diems for each out-of-town match — a total of 80 hours per year. Now, it takes him about 15 minutes per trip, saving him 70 hours of time annually.

To learn more about what these prepaid expense cards can do for your organization, or to get started, visit us online at www.commercebank.com/expensecard or at prepaidexpense@commercebank.com.

CommercePayments® solutions are provided by Commerce Bank.