Setting up expense management takes a few steps: connect a card, assign who's using it, and connect your accounting software so you can categorize and sync transactions. Here's how to get started.
Visa card connection isn't supported at this time. We're actively working to bring this to you soon.
In this article:
- Step 1: Open the Expenses tab
- Step 2: Connect a card and assign a cardholder
- Step 3: Link a QuickBooks Online account
- What happens next
- What you'll see in the dashboard
Step 1: Open the Expenses tab
Select Expenses from the left sidebar in Melio.
Step 2: Connect a card and assign a cardholder
You’ll see a brief explanation of what expense management is. Start the setup process by selecting Connect a card.
This opens a single form where you enter your card details and choose who's using the card.
1 - Enter a nickname for the card, then select Connect card.
2 - You'll see a short screen explaining that your card is connected securely - select Get started.
3 - Enter your card number, name on card, security code, expiration date, and country of issue. You'll also confirm that the card is used primarily for business purposes, then select Connect.
4 - Once your card is authenticated, you'll see a confirmation that it's linked successfully.
5 - Choose who's using the card under Cardholder. When adding a card for the first time, add a New cardholder.
Then enter their name, phone number or email address, or both.
Please note:
- Card details are handled by our card data partner, Astrada, which tokenizes your card the moment you enter it - Melio never stores your actual card number.
- Even if you've already connected this card elsewhere in Melio - for example, to pay bills - you'll need to connect it again here. Card connections for expense management are separate from card connections used for payments.
- Only purchases made after you connect the card will appear. Melio doesn't import historical transactions.
For full instructions, see How to add a business card in Melio and How to add and manage cardholders in Melio.
Step 3: Link a QuickBooks Online account
While connecting a card, you can also select a QuickBooks Online account to reconcile that card's transactions against. This tells Melio which account a card's transactions belong to in your books.
You can skip this for now and add it later from the Cards tab. You'll still be able to collect receipts and export transactions to CSV without it.
What happens next
As soon as your card is connected, new purchases start showing up in your Expenses dashboard automatically. From there, you can review, categorize, and sync each transaction.
What you'll see in the dashboard
The Expenses dashboard has three tabs:
- Transactions - every card purchase, filterable by status: Needs review, Ready to sync, Synced, and Pending details.
- Cards - every card you've connected, its cardholder, and its status.
- Cardholders - everyone assigned to a card, with their contact details and assigned cards.
Each tab has a search bar and Filters to narrow the list, and you can select multiple rows to act on them together — for example, syncing or exporting several transactions at once. See How to review and categorize expense transactions in Melio, How to add a business card in Melio, and How to add and manage cardholders in Melio for the full how-to on each tab.