Can You Have Too Many Credit Cards?

While it's a good idea to have at least one business credit card to establish a payment history and help your company establish a good credit rating, too many company credit cards can create a variety of problems for a business.

The following are just a few reasons why it's a good idea for a business to not have more than two or three credit cards:

• It signals lenders that you have the potential to get over your head in debt fast. It may cause banks to decline you for other types of loans, knowing that you could run up a sizeable chunk of debt on your credit cards.
• A handful of cards are more easily lost, stolen, or misused by employees than is a single card.
• Each additional card means a monthly statement that must be carefully scrutinized to make sure each charge is legitimate, further increasing your paperwork.
• Each card likely has an annual fee, so too many cards probably wastes money on renewal charges.