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Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

> My favorite example is expense-tracking software.

> some angel investor . . . said, "what if we issued our own credit cards and then kept all the swipe fees for ourselves?" [in lieu of a monthly fee]

> employees were strong-armed into . . . those corporate cards . . . even if it meant losing out on literal thousands of dollars in cash back and rewards from their personal cards

So the employee should be able to benefit from allocating the company's spending to their card's swipe fees (where said rewards come from), but it's wrong when the company itself wants to benefit from the swipe fees on the transactions that they are actually paying for (via discounted expense software)?

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> So the employee should be able to benefit from allocating the company's spending to their card's swipe fees (where said rewards come from), but it's wrong when the company itself wants to benefit from the swipe fees on their own transactions (via discounted expense software)?

Yes, absolutely. There isn't a single profitable corporation on earth that has employees that don't deserve to be compensated more.

What do you think this means? Companies shouldn't be able to reinvest money into themselves because every extra dollar needs to go to employees? Have you invented some way of determining the correct amount to grow each year as a business? I can't even begin to imagine how this would work in the real world. This makes no sense.

The comments on HN are turning into reddit comments with the massive drop in quality lately. The fact that you're on a throwaway reinforces my point quite a bit.

> Companies shouldn't be able to reinvest money into themselves because every extra dollar needs to go to employees

This wouldn't be called "profit", now would it?

Regardless, letting the market dictate as much as it does also doesn't make sense. Neither does trusting investors/shareholders to determine what's best for society. It's all just kind of broken.

Okay... so you're not asking for any changes at all, then. You just made a comment that vaguely tended towards the idea that employees need more money? Why?

If I can just take any money I "should" be giving to employees and absolve myself of that goal simply by spending the money on the company instead, which every publicly-owned company currently does, then nothing has changed.

You DO realize things like stock buybacks are done to grow the company, right? Like yes, there is a profit motive there for shareholders, but paying off shareholders could also be classified as growing the company.

So again - what are you actually asking for? Please clarify whatever point you're trying to make, because so far, all you've said is "nothing should change".

> every publicly-owned company currently does

Let me introduce you to a concept called “dividends”

Frankly, I’d love it if we made private enterprise illegal.

Dividends are a way to attract investors by showing that you are a stable company that can make them money a little faster than normal. It brings more money into the company in the long run and helps investors feel safe with you during times of economic downturn.

Companies aren't giving away money for fun - I promise you there's a strategy.

If I was building a competing expense system, the pricing slider would show how $5/user/month compared to how many dollars in rewards you (as the business owner) would be giving away by using a card issued by a "free" SaaS app based on total spend.

If a company decided to sign up for corporate cards directly such that _they_ were reaping all those rewards, that'd be perfectly fine and reasonable and it happens all the time. But as it is, employers are giving away the store by singing up for cards issued by these apps—and the software landscape is such that they don't have a ton of other options.

If your company is worrying about whether they or the employees are getting the credit card rewards for spending, instead of focusing on whether they are delivering a useful, valuable product or service that their customers will happily pay for, then they have lost their way.

As a consultant, the points and miles and status is the grease that makes a hundred plane trips a year tolerable. I would seriously reconsider my workplace if they moved away from the reimbursement model.

Think about it this way: the company previously allowed employees to get credit card points for re-inbursable expenses. They didn't have to, they could have required all purchases be made with a company card or something. That is basically a perk/benefit. Then the company took that perk away, which is effectively a decrease in compensation.

I don't think an employee is entitled to credit card rewards as a basic right. But taking it away after employees have an expectation of having it is akin to taking away free lunches.

It would be one thing if they were paying for the transactions directly. Companies with this arrangement make you get a "corporate card" under your own name which shows up on your personal credit report. I've had to pay off the card myself (and get reimbursed later) because the company was nearing 30 days late processing expense reports due to turnover/incompetence.

The company gets the float until the reimbursement is paid. If there is fraud on the card or a chargeback needs to be made, the employee has to deal with that. Seems fair that the employee gets the rewards.

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