Solutions

The integrated nature of the Care eMarketplace with embedded payment is a unique feature that cloudBuy has developed.  It overcomes most of the limitations of care management systems with accompanying card programmes by eliminating the need for multiple physical cards and making what would be a tedious manual process a lot more efficient.

The system supports complex services such as Domiciliary Care along with complex pricing by different time periods such as 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes and per hour for different geographic areas and times of day, days of week of public holidays.

Embedded Cards

Administration and cost is minimised by the use of a single embedded card which is used to pay for the majority of transactions. The card is embedded by the authority's finance department and is used to settle each transaction as it takes place. This has a number of benefits: 

  • The council only pays for what is used with no unused budget sitting on individual customer cards.
  • The transactions takes place between the council and end supplier, meaning that the council receives the invoice and can reclaim the VAT element.
  • There is a real time control and access to information to monitor how individuals are using their budgets.
  • There is complete control over what the card can be used to purchase.
  • It is impossible for the customer to overspend as their budget and profile is set up on the marketplace and they cannot change their profile.

Suppliers

Suppliers to the Care eMarketplace are set up with PCI/DSS compliant web sties at no cost, for point to point trading with a single local authority's end users. They can choose to set up a merchant account with any bank of their choice and the websites have been pre-integrated to all UK merchant accounts. The use of the corporate debit card is particularly attractive as suppliers are in funds very quickly and at low cost. For individuals and very small SME's there is a facility to set up a merchant account within the marketplace which is then used to disburse the funds via BACS.