Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Review for 2023

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card is a business prepaid card that offers a straightforward fee structure and a high maximum spend limit of $25,000 per day. It doesn’t charge any additional fees for domestic and international transactions. There are also no interest charges, making it a viable option for those needing to issue different kinds of cards based on varying business needs.

How We Evaluate Business Prepaid Cards

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Who the Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Is Best For

• Those who need varied kinds of cards for different reasons: Bento for Business can issue different types of cards, depending on how the cards will be used for your business.

If this card doesn’t fit your business needs, see our recommended alternatives below.

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Fees

Pricing

The card is free to use for the first 60 days from when your application is approved. After the 60-day free trial, a monthly subscription shall be charged.

• Starter (up to 10 cards): $29 per month
• Team (up to 25 cards) $69 per month
• Professional (up to 100 cards): $149 per month
• Enterprise (more than 100 cards): Upon request by contacting Bento at (866) 200-8455 or support@bentoforbusiness.com.

Fees

Bento for Business doesn’t charge fees for

• Setup
• Card load
• Domestic withdrawal or debit
• Interest charges
• Card issuance
• Domestic or international transactions
• Decline or overdraft
• Cancellation (although a returned check fee of $15 per check shall be applied when a balance remains in the account at the time of cancellation)

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Rewards

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card doesn’t offer any rewards for new and existing users.

How To Transfer Funds to the Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card

• Bento transfer: Go to the “Funds” tab and click the “Bento Transfer” icon. Input the amount you’d like to transfer and hit “+Add fund.” Note that there’s a maximum deposit limit of $10,000 per day and that processing will take one to three business days for funds to become available in your Bento account.
• Automatic deposit via Bento transfer: From the “Funds” tab, click “Scheduled Reload,” Enter the desired deposit amount and the deposit frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly). Click “Save” once everything is correct.
• Bank transfer: From the “Funds” tab, click “Bank transfer.” Note the banking information provided, contact your bank to initiate an automated clearing house (ACH) transfer, and provide the necessary banking information. Once the bank processes your transfer, funds will be made available in your Bento account within one or two business days.
• Wire transfer: From the “Funds” tab, click “Wire transfer.” Note the banking information provided, contact your bank to initiate a wire transfer, and provide the required banking information. Once the bank processes your transfer, funds will be made available in your Bento account within the same business day.

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Features

Cards

Bento for Business lets you create different kinds of cards, depending on how they will be used in your business. 

1. Corporate cards are physical cards that can be customized by either username (user and caption) or generic name (utility card option). These in-hand Visa debit cards can be used for both domestic and international transactions, so long as the transactions fall within the spend control categories determined by the admin.

• Spend Limit Cards: Best for everyday use and for expenses that require users to submit receipts.
  • Primary corporate: Pulls from your Bento account balance and is ideal for regular day-to-day business expenses
  • Purchase: Optimal for allowing authorized personnel to make purchases
  • Travel & entertainment (T&E): Best for businesses that need to manage and track all travel expenses
  • Ghost: Can be used to manage one-off payments to third parties without sharing primary card details or banking information
  • Subscription: Track and prevent unwanted automatic renewals

• Fixed Limit Cards: Best for one-time payments or transactions that don’t require users to submit receipts
  • Per diem: Can be used to reduce the time spent on reimbursements and tracking receipts
  • Vendor management: Ideal for regular vendors or one-time card vendors, protecting your banking information

2. Virtual cards can be created instantaneously when needed. As a quick and easy alternative to physical cards, they are best for one-off purchases, for use for a mobile wallet (i.e., tap-to-pay), and as a temporary card. They are customizable to have the same features as that of a physical card.

Funds

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card has a load limit of $10,000 per day, and funds held within Bento are Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured to at least $250,000 through the Bancorp Bank (Member FDIC).

Bento for Business has a maximum spend limit of $25,000 per day, per card, and a $500 per day ATM and cash back limit on the primary account holder’s card. Note that employee and utility Bento cards don’t have ATM and cash back access.

Expense Management System

• Invoice Payments: You can pay vendor invoices straight from your Bento account in two ways:

1. Bento Pay: Allows admins to pay invoices straight from a Bento balance without the need to input banking credentials from the payee
2. Regular ACH invoice payments: Lets admins enter banking credentials of the payee as one-off invoices straight from the Bento available balance

• Analytics and Reporting: Bento allows you to get a 360-degree view of your spending. This allows you to gain insight into your top spending employees, get real-time transaction updates, add filters to identify different types of spend by user, category, or other aspects associated with transactions, and map spend trends over the course of your Bento account.
• Accounting integration: You can connect any accounting software to Bento to reconcile your transactions directly from the dashboard. You can either auto-categorize, bulk categorize, or individually categorize transactions—saving bookkeepers 90% of time they normally spend in reconciling and matching receipts to transactions.
  • Auto categorization: You can create a rule on your Bento dashboard that will allow similar transaction characteristics to auto-add elements on your dashboard such as GL codes, class, or location
  • Bulk categorization: Manually code multiple transactions with a tag, GL code, or location at the same time
  • Individual categorization: Easily identify each transaction by clicking to get the transaction details and code each individually by GL code, tag, class, or location
• Policy enforcement settings: You can automatically turn on and off your employee cards as a way to auto-enforce employees to submit receipts on time, tag transactions correctly, and add notes if necessary.
• Tag creation: Admins can create custom tagging fields that can be used to keep track of different spend categories.
• Customized alerts: Admins can create customized alerts via text, email, or mobile app so that they are notified of certain activities made on the Bento account.
• User uploads: Admins can create, delete, or edit user profiles for employees—and employees can submit receipts via the mobile app. Admins can also customize the user profiles and determine what kind of access each will have.
• Change requests: Users can request changes to their card status (e.g., increase their spend limit and allow access to certain spend categories).
• Receipt capture: Employees can upload pictures of their receipts via the Bento for Business mobile app. This will keep the reconciliation and matching process clean, streamlined, and paperless

Mobile App

This lets both the admin and employee see their transactions in real-time without the need to be in front of a computer. Employees can upload their receipts, monitor the settings the admin has set for them, and track their pre-set spending limit. Meanwhile, admins can see multiple cards based on permissions and make some changes to include certain elements within the dashboard.

Bento for Business is available on PC, App Store, and Google Play. Its mobile app received a 4.1 out of 5 rating in the App Store and a 3.6 out of 5 rating on Google Play. While there are reviewers who said it was easy to use, helped them sort out receipts, and helped them with their bookkeeping tasks, there are some who had unsatisfactory experiences with how Bento for Business deals with fraudulent cases.

Pros & Cons of the Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card

Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Alternatives

Bank of America® Business Advantage Unlimited Cash Rewards Secured Credit Card

• Bank of America® Business Advantage Unlimited Cash Rewards Secured Credit Card is our best secured business credit card
• Has no annual fees
• Lets you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on all purchases
• Lacks an interest-free financing option on purchases and balance transfers

Dash Prepaid Mastercard®

• Dash Prepaid Mastercard® is one of our top-recommended business prepaid cards and is best for business owners with less than $1,000 daily spend
• Doesn’t charge setup and monthly fees; the provider takes a percentage of each sale from the merchant
• Offers an unlimited number of cards

Citi Purchasing Card

• Citi® Purchasing Card is our leading purchasing card
• Doesn’t charge annual fees, and costs can be customized depending on your business needs
• Requires you to pay the balance in full every month
• Offers robust spend controls and streamlined purchasing and payment processes

Bottom Line

For those who want different kinds of cards depending on their business needs, Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card is a good choice. It lets you create either a Spend Limit or a Fixed Limit card and has a maximum spend limit of $25,000 per day. You can try Bento for free for the first 60 days with no setup and debit fees, and then you have to subscribe to a monthly plan.