Cardholders may find other articles in the Cards and transactions section to be more applicable.
Overview
By restricting purchases on a card to specific categories, you can better control the spend that an employee places on their card. If an employee tries to make a purchase in a spend category that you have not authorized on their card, the transaction will be declined. With category-restricted cards, your team can have more rules, control, and peace of mind about employee spend.
How it works
Ramp determines the category of a merchant based on the MCC code and a number of factors. Sometimes, the category that we classify a merchant as does not match the user's expectation for the merchant's category. For example, you might think that your purchase at your favorite neighborhood restaurant will appear under the category "Restaurants" but instead Ramp might classify that merchant as "Supermarkets and Grocery Stores". If your category-restricted card only allows purchases in the "Restaurants" category your card might get declined in this case.
If your card is declined, we will alert you via SMS and, depending on your role, give you instructions on how to allow an exception.
Adding category restrictions
You can place category restrictions on new virtual cards, or you can edit existing virtual cards to include category restrictions.
- When creating, requesting, or editing a card, you can add category restrictions by navigating to the "Spend Categories" section.
- Click "Add Category Restrictions".
- You will be prompted with a drop-down of the categories you can allow on a card. Search by the category or by the particular merchant to figure out what categories best suit your needs.
- Add as many categories as you would like. Any spend on categories not selected will be declined.
Category restrictions on cards are optional. If you choose not to select any category restrictions, then a card will allow transactions from any category.
Allowing exceptions
If your category-restricted card is declined due to an issue with a transaction's category, we will send you an SMS message alerting you about the decline and how to make an exception.
- If you are a cardholder, the SMS message notes to reach out to your finance team to request an exception.
- If you are an admin, the SMS message details how to amend the category restrictions within Ramp.
Viewing restrictions
When you click on a card, a window will open with more information about it. In this window, we list the number of "Spend Categories" on the card. If your card has category restrictions, and you hover over the information icon in the "Spend Categories" section, we list the names of all the categories that the card is restricted to.
Available categories
You can find a list of all available spend categories below:
- Advertising
- Airlines
- Alcohol and Bars
- Books and Newspapers
- Car Rental
- Car Services
- Charitable Donations
- Clothing
- Cloud Computing
- Clubs and Memberships
- Education
- Electronics
- Entertainment
- Fees and Financial institutions
- Fines
- Freight, Moving, and Delivery Services
- Fuel and Gas
- Gambling
- General Merchandise
- Government Services
- Insurance
- Internet and Phone
- Intra-Company Purchases
- Legal
- Lodging
- Medical
- Office
- Office supplies and cleaning
- Other
- Parking
- Pet
- Political Organizations
- Professional Services
- Religious Organizations
- Restaurants
- SaaS / Software
- Shipping
- Streaming Services
- Supermarkets and Grocery Stores
- Taxes and tax preparation
- Taxi and Rideshare
- Travel Misc
- Utilities