Purchase Cards (including Department Cards) are not offered on all programs.
Overview
Department Cards allow a purchase card to be issued under a department or team name rather than an individual's name. Multiple buyers within a group can use the card, and the purchases are still billed to the customer's TreviPay net terms account as normal.
Card Custodian
Every Department Card must have a card custodian — a specific user who is formally accountable for the card. The custodian is responsible for safeguarding the card and ensuring it is only used by authorized individuals in accordance with their organization's policies and TreviPay program guidelines.
Who can be a custodian?
Any Account Admin, Group Admin, or Purchaser on the account can be assigned as a card custodian. Account Admins are always available as custodian options regardless of which group is selected for the card. Group Admins and Purchasers are eligible if they belong to the selected group or a group within its hierarchy.
Custodian experience
When a new Department Card is created, the assigned custodian receives an email notification informing them of their assignment. The email includes the card name, masked card number, credit limit (if one has been set), and shipping details for physical cards.
The custodian will see a Department Purchase Card section on their Profile / Purchasing page in the TreviPay Customer Portal, where they can view their assigned cards and navigate to the Card Details page to manage them. A custodian may be responsible for more than one Department Card.
What happens when a custodian is terminated?
If a user who is assigned as a card custodian has their user account terminated, all Department Cards assigned to that custodian are automatically terminated as well. This ensures that a Department Card is never left active without an accountable custodian.
Department Card Credit Limits
An optional credit limit can be set on a Department Card at the time of creation or edited afterward from the Card Details page. This limit controls the card's purchasing power.
How the limit is calculated
The Department Card's credit limit cannot exceed:
- The custodian's Individual Credit Limit (ICL), if one has been set for the custodian; or
- The customer's overall approved credit limit, if the custodian has no ICL.
This ensures the card's spending power is always bounded by the credit already authorized for the custodian. The card's credit limit also cannot be set below the card's current open charges and authorizations — meaning a card cannot be restricted below what has already been spent or authorized.
Department card available credit limits are tied to the custodian’s available credit. For example, if a custodian has an ICL of $5,000 and 2 department cards with $5,000 limits each, then if one card uses $1,000, both cards have $4,000 of remaining credit.
Automatic adjustments
If an admin later reduces a custodian's ICL to an amount lower than the credit limit set on one of their Department Cards, the Department Card's credit limit is automatically reduced to match the custodian's new ICL. The custodian receives an email notification whenever this occurs, detailing the previous and new credit limit for the affected card.