Penny Inc., which provides payments and expense and travel management products for small to medium-sized businesses, Monday announced the launch of the Penny prepaid MasterCard card program that is virtually connected to a mobile app. Built on the open API payment platform of Marqeta, Penny monitors and manages employee expenditures, which is intended to significantly reducing the time spent on expense tracking and administration processes.

"We've all experienced admin distracting us from creating value for our customers and bottom lines. Penny gives every employee their very own assistant," John Battley, Penny CEO, said in a statement. "Whether it's booking company travel or purchasing a business meal, with Penny, you hand an employee a card, download the mobile app, and let them get on with their job."

Penny features include: 

• No maintenance or usage fees: Penny prepaid MasterCard cards have no monthly, annual, transaction, withdrawal or cancellation fees. Penny comes with four free Penny prepaid MasterCard cards, and the Penny mobile app is free to download on the App Store or Google Play.
• Expense tracking reminders: Penny’s mobile app prompts the purchaser to photograph corresponding receipts at the time of sale and attaches it to the transaction, instantly stored for the company administrator to access.
• Control of business expenses: The company administrator oversees where and how each Penny card can be used -- including blocking merchants and/or setting daily spending limits. Alerts can be set to flag when an abnormal transaction occurs.
• Fast and easy set-up: Online registration takes less than ten minutes, and Penny cards are delivered within seven days. Items needed to sign-up for Penny include documentation of account holder identification, proof of address, certificate of incorporation, and corporate structure.
• Auto re-load capabilities: Bank routing and account numbers are linked to the Penny administration account. Settings can be configured to transfer money to the administration account when the account balance drops below a specified amount.
• Alignment with accounting software: Transaction data on the Penny card can be exported to various accounting programs including Quickbooks, Xero and MYOB.

An updated version of Penny will be released in March 2016 with increased functionalities, including the ability to book flights, hotels and car rentals. Penny's prepaid is issued by Sutton Bank.