To start, I need to say that as an accountant, keeping business and personal expenses separate by using separate bank accounts and credit cards is always the preferred option, as it makes tax preparation and end of year bookkeeping much more straightforward. This may also result in savings on your accounting bill if you are working with a firm that chooses to bill hourly.

As a points and miles enthusiast, however, I understand that business credit cards typically have very high minimum spends needed to earn the welcome bonus. For example, let’s say that you are lucky enough to be targeted for the 250,000 point offer for the American Express Business Platinum, which requires $15,000 in 3 months. If you have just begun growing your business, that level of spend may not be practical, even if you choose to prepay business expenses. In this case, it is understandable that the next best option is to move your personal spend to your new business card in order to help you reach the minimum spend.

I recommend that you reach out to your accountant before you apply for a card if you anticipate that you will need to put both business and personal expenses on the same card. Some accountants may decide that they aren’t willing to assist. At that point, you will need to decide whether to delay getting the card(s) that you want until your business or personal expenses allow you to meet the spend without comingling them, or whether you want to seek out an accountant who is more familiar with the world of award travel, who may be more willing to help you come up with a strategy that will result in the fewest headaches for them at tax time, while still allowing you to hit as many bonuses as possible each year.

If you handle your own bookkeeping, the easiest way to separate expenses is to treat personal expenses made with the card as an owner’s draw and then pay it all from your business account. This becomes more complicated if you carry a balance at any point while there are both personal and business expenses on the card, as the interest would need to be separated, since only the interest on business purchases is deductible. For this reason, once you have reached the minimum spend, I recommend paying the card completely and then designating the card as business-only from that point forward, to ensure that if you need to carry a balance in the future, there won’t be any confusion regarding whether or not it’s deductible.