Summary 

Using virtual cards, Central Construction streamlined expense management and enhanced oversight across 91 construction projects and more than 250 contractors and suppliers, resulting in smoother operations and valuable time savings for its finance and accounting team.

About Central Construction

Central Construction has more than 20 years of experience in exterior building restoration, including ornamental stone restoration, landmark preservation, masonry, waterproofing, and roofing replacements. Committed to helping buildings stand the test of time, they take a custom approach by blending innovative materials and techniques with traditional methods, ensuring historic structures preserve their unique characteristics and look better than new.

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The challenge 

Life before Extend was complex. 

Like many construction companies managing multiple projects, contractors, suppliers, and employees, Central Construction struggled to secure credit card spending and maintain oversight. 

Relying on a physical company credit card—often shared between team members and left on file with multiple vendors—exposed the business to frequent fraud, especially when dealing with new or one-off vendors.

"At one point, dealing with fraud became the norm," said Bishma Pandey, controller at Central Construction. "With so many payments happening at once, it was nearly impossible to track who was spending what. There was zero accountability.”

Not only was this approach risky, but it also created an administrative burden for the company’s accounting team, which had to manually verify and categorize each transaction. “We were spending 40+ hours every month just on reconciliation,” Bishma said.

When the company card wasn’t available, employees paid out-of-pocket and submitted expense reports. This process not only made it difficult to monitor spending in real-time but often led to delays and frustration for both staff and finance.

To Bishma, it was clear Central Construction needed a secure, flexible solution to reduce the risk of fraud, simplify expense tracking, and provide greater transparency into finances.

The solution

When Central Construction's bank representative told the company about Extend, it sounded like the solution they needed to solve their biggest challenges and gain peace of mind.

Instead of relying on a physical card, the finance team now creates virtual cards whenever they need to pay a supplier or equip an employee with a company card. Leaving recurring virtual cards on file with all their regular vendors immediately reduced Central Construction’s exposure risk, giving Bishma peace of mind that they could never be overcharged, and if fraud should happen, it would only impact the one virtual card—not the entire business.

"With Extend, we can leave cards on file without worry. Custom spending limits and expiration dates give us an extra layer of security. If fraud ever happens, it’s contained to that one card—there’s no disruption to our entire credit line and no need to update payment details with every vendor. It’s pretty incredible, considering we went from around 50 instances of fraud every six months to almost none."

Bishma Pandey

Controller, Central Construction

MBA | ACCA Member | 15+ Years of Construction Accounting Experience

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This setup gave Central Construction the financial control it had been missing and enabled its team to:

• Reduce exposure risk by assigning dedicated, recurring virtual cards for projects, suppliers, and employees, ensuring secure and controlled spending.
• Boost accountability and transparency with unique card numbers and custom spending limits that keep everyone, and every transaction, accounted for.
• Streamline workflows and reduce delays by empowering project managers and on-site crew members to make direct, project-related purchases without waiting for the company card or submitting reimbursements.
• Simplify expense tracking and reconciliation with real-time visibility into spending and automatic expense categorization, saving time and eliminating manual effort.

The quick onboarding process also made Extend an easy choice.

"Once we registered our business credit card in Extend, it took less than two hours to get up and running. The quick and easy setup allowed us to start using virtual cards in minutes, giving us instant control over spending without disrupting operations."

Bishma Pandey

Controller, Central Construction

MBA | ACCA Member | 15+ Years of Construction Accounting Experience

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The results 

Increased security

Fraud became a rare occurrence for Central Construction. Creating individual virtual cards with specific spending limits for each payment ensures charges never go over the approved amount and provides a greater level of security when working with new or one-off vendors.

Time savings

With a much easier and more efficient reconciliation process, Bishma and the AP team have saved 44 hours each month and $21K annually in labor costs—all by turning what was once a tedious and time-consuming task into a quick, streamlined process.

Better accountability

By assigning virtual cards to specific projects, vendors, and employees, Central Construction now has a clear view of who’s responsible for each expense, making it easy to track spending across the company.

Simplified expense management

With transactions directly linked to projects and team members, expense tracking and reconciliation are straightforward, lightening the load on the finance team and making it easier to stay organized.

"Extend offered exactly what we needed—a simple, secure way to manage expenses while reducing the risk of fraud."

Bishma Pandey

Controller, Central Construction

MBA | ACCA Member | 15+ Years of Construction Accounting Experience