We are pleased to announce Lithic’s latest advancement in commercial payment solutions: support for Level 2 (L2) and Level 3 (L3) enhanced commercial data. This new functionality is able to transform how businesses manage their spending by providing card programs deeper insights into their transactions and greater control over their expenses.
When issuing commercial cards with Lithic, businesses can combine the power of enhanced commercial data with a seamless developer experience powered by the Lithic platform. With commercial data that is programmatically accessible via modern APIs, rapidly available via webhooks, and cleanly structured into JSON objects, Lithic puts enhanced commercial data at businesses’ fingertips with issuing technology that just works.
The Value of Enhanced Commercial Data
Commercial card programs have become a critical tool for companies looking to streamline their operations, manage expenses, and gain valuable insights into their spending patterns. According to recent industry reports, companies spend over $1 trillion annually using commercial cards. Despite this, many businesses never receive more than basic data about their card transactions, leaving them with a fragmented view of their expenses and making it challenging to manage costs effectively.
Lithic’s enhanced commercial data offers a comprehensive solution that captures detailed information for each transaction, providing businesses with the insights they need to optimize their spending and streamline their financial operations. This additional level of detail can be used to enable:
Detailed Expense Management
Enhanced commercial data provides granular insights into spending, enabling businesses to track expenditures more accurately. This detailed visibility helps in identifying cost-saving opportunities, negotiating better terms with suppliers, and enforcing purchasing policies.
Enhanced Fraud Detection
Detailed transaction data helps in detecting unusual or unauthorized purchases. By analyzing enhanced commercial data at clearing time, companies can spot discrepancies and unusual spending patterns that may indicate fraud, allowing for quicker and more effective responses for their cardholders.
Streamlined Reconciliation
With detailed information readily available, the reconciliation process becomes more efficient. Enhanced commercial data reduces the need for manual verification and allows for quicker matching of transactions to invoices, thereby reducing administrative overhead.
Improved Reporting and Analytics
Enhanced data allows for more comprehensive reporting and analytics. Businesses can generate detailed reports that break down expenses by categories, departments, or projects, providing deeper insights into spending trends and aiding in strategic decision-making.
Compliance and Audit Readiness
Having detailed transaction data readily available ensures that businesses can easily comply with internal and external audit requirements. Enhanced commercial data provides a clear audit trail, making it easier to verify the legitimacy of expenses and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.
Understanding Enhanced Commercial Data
When processing transactions, merchants have the ability to pass additional, more granular purchase data in exchange for lower commercial interchange rates. This additional data falls into the buckets of Level 2 and Level 3 data.
- Level 2 data can be thought of as enhanced transaction information that describes the whole transaction. Examples of L2 data include sales tax amount, invoice number, order number, etc. L2 data is often used for B2B transactions where more transaction-level information is valuable for expense reporting and tax filing purposes.
- Level 3 data can be thought of as enhanced transaction information that describes individual items within a transaction. Level 3 data is like a digital receipt, providing line-item level detail for the goods and services purchased in the transaction such as item descriptions, quantity of each item, unit price, product code, etc. L3 data is often used for large corporate purchases, government transactions, or when detailed reporting is required for procurement processes.
An illustrative example to help understand L2 and L3 data is to compare two cardholders making identical purchases at a filling station convenience store- one using a Lithic-issued fleet card enabled for enhanced commercial data, and one using a traditional consumer card from another issuer. In this scenario, both cardholders purchase $50 of gasoline, a candy bar, and a sandwich. Despite the purchases being identical, the data which the issuing card programs receive is very different.
Customer 1 (consumer): Level 1 data only
The card program receives only the minimum amount of data to successfully process the transaction such as the merchant name, transaction amount, merchant location, and other expected basic transaction data.
Customer 2 (Commercial Fleet; Enhanced Commercial Data enabled)
The commercial card relays all of the same basic Level 1 data received with the consumer card, but Level 2 and Level 3 data is additionally provided with the Lithic-issued commercial fleet card.
Level 2 Data:
Tax information: Total amount of tax paid, Merchant Tax ID, and the merchant’s tax-exemption status
Industry-specific information (Fleet): The type and grade of fuel purchased, total quantity of fuel dispensed, price per unit of fuel, and more.
Level 3 data:
Line item level data: The description, quantity, unit price, and product code of the items purchased.
Why Choose Lithic’s Enhanced Commercial Data Solutions?
Seamless Integration
Lithic’s enhanced data solutions integrate seamlessly with existing Lithic APIs, making it easy for businesses to leverage detailed transaction data within their current systems and workflows. With commercial data that is programmatically accessible via modern APIs, quickly available via webhooks, and cleanly structured into JSON objects, businesses can unlock the power of L2 and L3 data faster than ever.
Lightning Fast Availability
With Lithic’s enhanced commercial data transaction webhooks, businesses are kept in the loop and notified immediately when new enhanced commercial data is available for a transaction. By consuming Lithic webhooks, businesses never have to query for missing data or wonder if their systems are up-to-date with the latest transaction information.
Unmatched Transparency
Lithic’s enhanced commercial data support offers unparalleled transparency into every transaction, allowing businesses to gain a clearer understanding of their cardholders’ spending patterns. With a clearer understanding of cardholders’ spending profiles, businesses can take action to fight fraud, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve overall financial management.
Get Started with Lithic’s Enhanced Commercial Data Solutions
Lithic’s support for enhanced commercial data is now available to all users issuing commercial cards. Discover how our enhanced data solutions can transform your commercial payment processes and provide the insights you need to drive better business decisions. Explore our documentation or contact us to learn more about leveraging enhanced commercial data with Lithic.
Ready to take your commercial transactions to the next level? Contact us to learn more about Lithic’s enhanced commercial data support today!