Before sending your first reward, you must choose and set up a payment method. Depending on the structure of your company and the country in which you’re located, your chosen setup may vary.
IN THIS GUIDE
Selecting a team currency
When you create a Tremendous account, your team currency is set to USD by default. However, you can change to GBP or EUR if your company prefers to make payments in one of these currencies.
All balances, order totals, and reporting will reflect the team currency you set. Team currency is locked once you make a payment or enable a currency-based setting, so it's important to make any necessary changes before you fund your account.
To change your team currency, go to the homepage or Billing > Balance and open the three-dot menu on the balance tile. Learn more about team currencies.
Available payment methods
You can pay by credit card, connected bank account, or invoice.
Credit card
It’s quick to save a credit card to your account and start sending rewards. When saving a credit card to your account, you can allow all team members to pay with the card or restrict it to personal use only.
Before saving a credit card, be aware of the following:
- There’s a non-refundable 3% processing fee for credit card payments. Other payment methods don’t have any fees.
- Credit card payments have transaction limits. If you’re placing your first order for greater than $10 000 USD (or equivalent in other currencies), you may be asked to resubmit the order using a different payment method.
- If you’re located in Europe, your finance team may require a VAT number to be included on payment receipts. Add your VAT number to your billing details in Team settings > Team profile before making your first payment.
To save a credit card to your account, go to Billing > Payment methods and click Add credit card. Learn more about saving and paying with credit cards.
If there’s no Add credit card option in your Billing > Payment methods tab, the Tremendous operations team may have instructed you to pay by invoice. Check your account email for outreach from clients@tremendous.com. If you can’t find any outreach or if you have questions, please send us an email.
Connected bank account
If you’re located in the US, you have the option to connect your bank account to Tremendous. Orders and prefunds are paid by withdrawing the amount directly from your bank account. This payment method is quick to set up for small- to medium-sized companies and has no fees.
Before connecting a bank account, be aware of the following:
- Connected bank account payments are available in the US only. If you’re located outside of the US, we recommend paying by invoice instead.
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Connected bank account payments have settlement windows. After you initiate a deposit using a connected bank account, we make some of the funds available to you right away. The rest becomes available after a settlement period of 4 business days.
Prefund example: You add $10,000 to your prefund balance via your connected bank account. $5,000 is available to use right away. The remaining $5,000 becomes available 4 business days later.
Order example: You order $10,000 in rewards and select your connected bank account as the payment method at checkout. We will send your rewards 4 business days later once your payment has settled. On the order summary page, we show you the date your rewards will be sent.
- When connecting a bank account, you must verify the account by either signing in to your online banking portal or by receiving a verification microdeposit. If you work for a large company and you’re not part of the finance team, this may be challenging.
To connect a bank account, go to Billing > Payment methods and click Add bank account. Learn more about connecting and paying with your bank account.
Invoice
Clients worldwide have the option to prefund their account by invoice. Invoice payments aren’t associated with settlement windows like connected bank account payments, and they aren’t subject to the same transaction limits as credit card payments.
Invoices can be created in different currencies depending on where you’re located. If you’re located in Europe or the United Kingdom, you can create invoices in EUR or GBP.
Invoices contain more information than receipts, including your company name, address, and a memo field for you to enter other required details. Invoice payments are recommended if your finance team requires detailed payment documentation.
Before creating an invoice, be aware of the following:
- Invoices are used to prefund your account, not to buy rewards now and pay later. When you create an invoice, we don’t top up your prefund balance until we receive the funds from you.
- Net payment terms are available to clients who send more than $100,000 USD per year in rewards. If you meet this threshold and you’re interested in net payment terms, contact our sales team.
- Invoices must be paid by initiating a transfer from your bank. Invoices can’t be paid by credit card or connected bank account.
To create an invoice, go to Billing > Balance and click Add funds > Create an invoice. Learn more about invoice payments by checking out the following resources:
- Creating USD invoices
- Creating invoices in Europe
- Creating invoices in the United Kingdom
- Fund your account from outside of the US
What’s the best payment method for my program?
You should pay by invoice if:
- You’re new to Tremendous and plan to place your first order for more than $10,000 USD
- Your finance team requires invoices
- Your finance team won’t be logging in to Tremendous to manage your account directly
You should pay by credit card if:
- Your company tracks expenses via corporate credit cards and does not require detailed invoices
- You want to get started quickly and don’t mind the 3% fee
- You’re placing a small order
You should pay by bank account if:
- You’re located in the US and your company prefers this payment method
- You’re a member of your company’s finance team and will be managing the Tremendous account directly, or you have direct access to the company bank account you want to connect
If you’re not sure, check your internal company policies and ask your finance team what payment method they prefer.
Paying per-order vs. prefunding
There are two ways to pay for rewards. You can prefund your account ahead of time and spend your balance on rewards, or you can pay for each order directly at checkout using a saved credit card or bank account.
You should pay for rewards by prefunding if:
- Invoice is the best payment method for your program
- Your finance team prefers a single charge over multiple small charges for reconciliation purposes
- You’re an API user
You can pay directly at checkout if:
- Credit card or bank account is the best payment method for your program
- You send rewards on an irregular cadence and don’t know how much to leave in your prefund balance
- Your finance team can reconcile multiple small charges with ease
If you pay by credit card or bank account, be careful not to prefund your account and select your credit card or bank account at checkout. This results in a double-payment situation where you’re charged once for the prefund and a second time for the order.
You can ensure this doesn’t happen by navigating to Billing > Payment methods and setting permissions for your payment method. If you don’t allow your credit card or bank account to be used for orders, it won’t appear as a selectable option at checkout. If you don’t allow it to be used to add funds to your balance, it won’t appear as a selectable option during the Add funds flow.
How much should I prefund?
If you’re new to sending rewards and don’t know how much volume you’re going to send, it can be hard to know how much to add to your prefund balance. Depending on your use case and preferred payment method, there are different ways to estimate how much to prefund.
- If your team prefers to pay by credit card or connected bank account, you can pay for orders directly at checkout instead of prefunding. Paying at checkout means you don’t have to estimate your reward sending volume ahead of time.
- Unsure if these payment methods are a good fit for your program? See the recommendations.
- Credit card payments have transaction limits. If you’re placing your first order for greater than $10 000 USD (or equivalent in other currencies), you may be asked to resubmit the order using a different payment method.
- If your team prefers to pay by invoice, you’ll need to prefund your account.
- If your project has a limited time frame or budget, such as incentives for a study, choose your prefund amount based on this information. You can estimate how many participants you’ll get during the span of the project or prefund the amount that was budgeted.
- If you don’t have time frame or budget constraints and don’t have any historical data to go by, start by prefunding what you think you’ll send in the beginning. This could be a few dollars of test payments, a couple of sales SPIFs or customer satisfaction payouts, etc. If you’re concerned about your prefund balance running out quickly, add a cushion.
- It’s okay if you prefund too much: you can withdraw your unspent prefund balance at any time. There are no fees associated with a prefund balance withdrawal. Learn more about withdrawing your prefund balance.
- As your reward program ramps, you’ll quickly start to see how many rewards you send each week. You can track your volume in the Orders and rewards > Analytics tab of the dashboard or by downloading one of our pre-built reports.
Be mindful of your chosen payment method and how quickly you’ll be able to top up your prefund balance if it runs out. If you’ve chosen to pay by credit card, for example, you can top up your prefund balance in seconds. If you’ve chosen to pay by invoice and you know your finance team usually takes a week to process payments, you should prefund a larger amount and request more funds from your finance team before your balance runs out.
Tremendous has built-in prefund balance management tools:
- Low balance notifications are available to all clients right away. When low balance notifications are set up, we’ll email you a maximum of once per day when your prefund balance drops below the threshold you set. Learn more about low balance notifications.
- Once your program is established and you’ve sent more than $5000 in rewards, auto-reload will become available. Auto-reload automatically tops up your prefund balance using a connected credit card or bank account. Learn more about auto-reload.
Paying for API orders
If you send rewards via the API, you must pay for your orders with the prefund balance funding source by default. You can prefund your account by logging into the dashboard or using the API to create invoices and topups.
The invoice funding source is available to clients who send more than $100,000 USD per year in rewards. When using the invoice funding source, you send rewards now and pay the invoice later. If you meet the sending threshold and you’re interested in using the invoice funding source, contact our sales team.
Credit card and connected bank account funding sources are not available when sending rewards via the API.
Learn more about API funding sources by reviewing our developer docs.