Do you have a business credit card like the CitiBusiness credit card or the American Express Gold Business credit card? Are you thinking about applying for one for your small business? If so, when should you use that business credit card, and when would you be better off not charging your purchases?

Let’s talk about some items and situations that might call for business credit card purchasing, and other situations and items that usually call for putting the credit card away.

When to Use Business Credit Cards

Here are four examples of when using a business credit card could be a good idea:

1.    Furniture and office equipment you need to finance over time
2.    Routine online and phone purchases (such as toner cartridges or bulk office supplies)
3.    Employee expenses — to track employee spending
4.    Business travel expenses (to get the travel perks)

When Not to Use Business Credit Cards

Here are a few examples of when using a business credit card is not such a good idea:

1.    Financing low-ticket items over time
2.    Start-up costs, if lower interest loans will cover them
3.    Personal transactions (even if you run a one-person business)

The idea is to use business credit cards when there’s a long-term benefit in doing so, such as better record-keeping for employee spending or the ability to finance large ticket office items that you can’t afford to pay off in full right away. On the other hand, even though it might be tempting to use your business credit card for personal expenses if you’re a solopreneur, it’s always a bad idea to intermingle your personal and business finances. One of the biggest reasons for getting that business credit card, after all, is to keep those finances separate in your records.

Why not finance low-ticket items over time with your business credit card? You run the risk of going into debt over things that will be fully consumed before they’re paid for. It’s the same mistake people make with personal credit cards when they do something like finance grocery purchases over time, building credit card debt. In your case those consumables might be office supplies instead. Of course if you can pay off those low-ticket items in full each month rather than financing them over time, there’s no harm in taking advantage of the convenience of a business credit card.

Think of your business credit card much like you’d think of using a personal credit card. You can choose to go into debt and pay a lot of interest over time, or you can pay down regular expenses right away and only finance those occasional big-ticket items. Your business can go into debt just like a personal cardholder can. You know the financial health of your business and how much debt it can really handle. And as long as you’re mindful of that, you should have no problem deciding when and where to use a business credit card as opposed to other payment options.