American Express Overview

Audience:  All MineralTree Users

Summary: Covers the process for adding and managing American Express cards to be used for payments within MineralTree and addresses common questions about our integration with American Express (AMEX).

Topics covered:

• How do AMEX payments in MineralTree work?
• How to add an AMEX card to MineralTree
• How to enable a vendor for AMEX payments
• How to submit an AMEX payment
• AMEX remittance information
• FAQs

How do AMEX payments in MineralTree work?

MineralTree enables your physical American Express (AMEX) business card to act as a virtual card through the MineralTree platform to pay your vendors. This process is called tokenization. You will still get the same rewards from those purchases as you normally would and the transactions show up on your same AMEX statement. 

So what is a virtual card?

When you make a payment in MineralTree using your AMEX card, your vendor is emailed a remittance containing invoice information as well as a tokenized one-time-use 16-digit card number, expiration date, and CVV code that they can "swipe" in their credit card terminal or point of sale system. This 16-digit tokenized number can be swiped only once, is valid for up to the amount that you specified in MineralTree, and it expires after 30 days.

How to add an AMEX card to MineralTree

Prior to setting up an American Express card with MineralTree, you should be sure to add the card in your accounting system. The MineralTree best practice is for your card to have its own GL account within your accounting system.

AMEX Card Enrollment in MineralTree

NOTE: The following steps will not work to re-enroll a new card on the same debit account that has synced over from your accounting system. Please first create a new card in your accounting system before proceeding.

1. Login to MineralTree and navigate to Company Profile by clicking your initials on the top right of the navigation bar. 
2. Go to the Manage Accounts tab, and scroll down to the Card Account section
3. Click Edit on the right-hand side and select Enable for AMEX if it is not already selected. Click the Enroll AMEX link. 
   
4. You will then be asked if you would like to enroll your card or someone else's card. Note: we recommend using the "I'm enrolling my own Card" option whenever possible as this method provides a more seamless enrollment process.
   
5. If you are enrolling your own card, you will be prompted to enter your AMEX User ID and password to complete enrollment.
   
   • Select an eligible card.
   • Enrollment is complete. Your card will now be available for use in MineralTree.
6. If you are enrolling someone else's card, you will be prompted to put in the card number twice. 
   
   • Once you press Submit the card owner will receive an email asking them to continue card enrollment. They should follow the instructions below. 
     • Navigate to the AMEX B2B Payments Card Enrollment portal per the email from American Express
     • Continue enrolling the card per the prompts. Agree to the Terms of Service and Continue. 
       
     • Enrollment is complete. Your card will now be available for use in MineralTree.

How to enable a vendor for AMEX payments

Open the appropriate Vendor Profile.

From there, scroll down to Payment Preferences. The AMEX card should be selected from the Default Paid From drop down, and once that's selected, the Default Payment Type should be changed to Credit Card.

Once that is complete, scroll down to the Credit/Debit Card section and enter the vendor email that you want the remittance and credit card token to be sent to. Press Save. 

How to submit an AMEX payment

During the American Express vendor enrollment process, your AMEX-accepting vendors were set in MineralTree with American Express as their default payment method. To pay these vendors in particular, click into the Invoices tab.  

From there, you should click on Advanced Search. 

Because all open bills are in the invoices tab, you can narrow down the list of open bills by those who have American Express as their default payment method. Once in Advanced Search, click on the Default Payment Type drop down and select "Credit Card."

The bills that appear are only for vendors that will accept American Express.

Submitting Your Invoices For Payment

Once your bills are sorted, you can easily pay them. Click on the check boxes and then the green arrow to move them to the Selected Payments queue.

The payments will move over to the Selected Payments queue to the right. Once there, you can set the date for payment. If you leave the date as "Not Set" it will process the AMEX payment once the payment is authorized by your Payment Authorizer (if applicable). Then click the green Confirm Payments button.

The next screen gives you an additional opportunity to check the date and card. You can also add notes for the Payment Authorizer. Click Submit Payments and your payments will be submitted to your Payment Authorizer for approval (if applicable). 

AMEX Remittance Information

When you pay a vendor with your American Express card in the MineralTree platform, they receive a remittance containing a temporary one-time-use card number that they are able to swipe up to the purchase amount that you indicated in MineralTree. The image below is what they will receive.

Please note that when you are paying multiple invoices to the same vendor, the default setting in MineralTree is to group that into one payment amount with the individual invoices indicated on the remittance. If your vendor requires one payment per invoice, please refer to the "disable payment grouping" article to turn off payment grouping on the vendor's profile in MineralTree.

FAQs

What if my vendor doesn't swipe the card?

Your vendor will be sent reminder emails every three days until they swipe the card. If they don't swipe before it expires (30 days) then you will need to void the payment which will reopen the invoice. From here you can resubmit the payment.

Can I use the Manual Card option?

The Manual Card option allows for the marking of payments that were made outside of MineralTree.  In order for AMEX tokenization to work and payment to be sent out to your vendors from within MineralTree, you must select the Credit Card payment method, not Manual Card. Please refer to the Submit Payments article for more information on how to submit Manual Payments.

Can vendors swipe the card multiple times?

No, we do not support multi-swipe for Amex payments. If your vendor requires you to send one payment per invoice, edit their vendor profile and fill the checkbox for "disable payment grouping".

Where can I get more information on the payment status?

MineralTree has a report called "Amex Card Payment Tracking" that you can access under the Reports tab. This report shows you the statuses of your AMEX payments including when your vendor was sent the payment, reminder emails, and if/when the payment was swiped.

What if my vendor doesn't swipe for the whole amount? 

Sometimes the vendor only swipes for part of the amount that you authorized. This most commonly happens when payments for multiple invoices are grouped into one lump sum. If your vendor requires one payment per invoice, disable payment grouping for that vendor on their vendor profile.

If your vendor swipes for only part of the amount you issued, take the following steps:

1. Void the payment in MineralTree. 

2. Issue a manual card payment on the invoice for the amount that your vendor has processed. See this article for more information on how to make a manual payment. Be sure to select "Manual Card" as your payment type. 

3. Issue a credit card payment for the remaining amount. 

What do payments look like on my AMEX statement?

The payments will look like regular charges on your card, and will appear on your statement when your vendor processes the token.

What do I do if I get a new AMEX card?

1. If you card was replaced due to either of the following, no action is required in MineralTree:
   • If the card was compromised due to fraudulent activity and American Express issues you a new one.
   • If the card was replaced due to hitting it's expiration date (note: the expiration date in MineralTree does not update due to limitations in the Amex API).
2. If you need to replace an existing card with a brand new one, please first create a new credit card account in your accounting system, do not change the information on the account which has already been enrolled in MineralTree.
   • From there, you can follow the standard enrollment steps

• Phone: 855‑672‑9669
• Email: mtsupport@mineraltree.com