Why international berry grower Driscoll's opts for ICS credit cards

Having to travel a lot to offices abroad

Carin de Jong of Driscoll's explains why they made this choice. The reasons include a quality service, favourable rates, and the fact that ICS operates independently of any particular banks.

First about the company itself. Driscoll's history began in California at the end of the 19th century. In 1990, they also started selling berries in Europe. They now sell their fruits in a variety of countries, including Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Morocco. Driscoll's European headquarters are based in Breda.

The company's employees often have to travel for work, using an ICS credit card to pay for expenses incurred during their business trips. We spoke with Carin de Jong, Finance Manager Accounts Payable at Driscoll's EMEA, about the use of these credit cards.

Travel expenses and current expense claim process

Carin de Jong has had a long and successful career in the financial sector and is currently Finance Manager Accounts Payable at Driscoll's. She has been with Driscoll's for 13 years and previously worked for Bonduelle and Hunter Douglas.

De Jong is responsible for accounts payable in the EMEA region and, as part of that role, also deals with payroll, employee benefits (including credit cards), business expenses, and other matters. These responsibilities focus primarily on Driscoll's employees.

We asked De Jong about the types of business expenses for which employees of Driscoll's use an ICS business credit card on a business trip: "Because of our extensive operations across the EMEA region, we use business credit cards to support our travel policy. So these are purely intended for travel. They are not to be used for any actual purchase. Airline tickets, for example, are purchased centrally. The cards are used for things such as hotels, local transport, renting cars, fuel, access to conferences and so on."

Driscoll's Carin de Jong believes it is important that employees should be able to use a business credit card when travelling: "You cannot expect your employees to pay for all expenses upfront when travelling or to purchase a credit card for the benefit of their employer. In fact, some trips can't even be done without a credit card to pay for expenses."

This is how the expense claim process works at Driscoll's. Employees must obtain approval from their manager first before receiving a business credit card. This is only for people who travel frequently for work.

De Jong explains that the process of claiming expenses is outdated. Employees send in their receipts via email and expenses are entered in Excel files manually.

De Jong: "We are still using a somewhat outdated process to input these expenses in our OPEX. That's because the expenses must be approved manually, with employees' credit card statements being processed as fictitious invoices. Receipts are submitted by email. Everything is still being done manually in Excel files."

Driscoll's wants to switch over to a new ERP system to make this process easier, but this will take some time. De Jong is now looking for temporary solutions to speed up the process.

Switching banks and looking for bank-independent credit cards

Companies such as Driscoll's often change banks, for example when a new CFO arrives. For example, Driscoll's has already changed banks three times since Carin de Jong started working there. This also happened a few years ago, when the company wanted to leave the bank that supported their credit card programme.

It did not have the right credit cards to cover the whole of Europe. Normally, Driscoll's would compare different providers, but this time they quickly opted for ICS. The US parent company was unable to provide appropriate credit cards for Europe. So Driscoll's went looking for a solution in Europe. They chose ICS because it is bank-independent and offers Mastercards, which better suits their business requirements.

De Jong: "We wanted a programme that we could roll out across all foreign-based entities. At one point, we had a programme in place with a bank in Britain, with a bank in the Netherlands, and with yet another bank in Spain. We wanted to move away from that.  And to centralise the process. ICS provided the solution. It is a well-known brand. They work for big names and reliable companies with a long history. And they offer very favourable rates as well." 

The impact of business credit cards

At Driscoll's, many employees who travel frequently do not have a management position or a credit card of their own. De Jong: "These employees must be assisted financially when travelling. Without a business credit card, they would have to ask us for an advance. If everyone did this, it would be very labour-intensive. Also if someone then left the company, the situation would become very difficult. We tried something like this before, when an employee travelled to the United States once. In the end, it created an awful lot of red tape."

So the business credit cards save a lot of time in the day-to-day processes. Aside from that, Carin de Jong also considers the ICS credit cards to be very safe, reliable, and easy to use.

De Jong: "We haven't had any negative experiences so far with things like fraud or skimming at airports or anything like that. So I cannot say much about ICS's handling of fraud. That said, we do save a great deal of time with ICS because there are no problems with accessibility. Cardholders can contact ICS immediately in the case of an emergency. The cards are also accepted almost anywhere anytime."

Working with ICS, Driscoll's has also blocked certain transactions , such as gambling and buying jewellery. De Jong: "When setting up the accounts for four different entities, we made sure to block certain types of payments. Examples include (online) gambling, jewellery purchases, and cash transactions. If employees could use their business credit card to withdraw cash, this would make the expense claims process a lot more complicated. This way, we can prevent these types of situations. It's very convenient."