Offer rapid! PayCard to Your Crew

Modified on Thu, 17 Sep at 1:05 PM

Some of your Crew do not have a bank account. Others would simply rather have a card.

Summary

rapid! PayCard lets a Crew member take their pay on a card instead of a bank account. It is optional, and it changes where they are paid, not when.

You open an account with rapid! directly, and that gates everything else. NextCrew then sets up both enrollment routes for you — a document in your onboarding paperwork, and a field in the Crew mobile app. Ask for both, because the document only ever reaches new starters.

From there a Crew member enrolls, their details go to rapid! automatically, and rapid! issues and posts the card. Then two things still have to happen: the Crew member types the card details into the app, and that information reaches your payroll system. That first one is where it stalls — somebody can be fully enrolled, holding a card, and still be paid to their bank. Nothing is ever held up, though: payroll simply pays to whatever destination it holds at the time.

Track it with the Rapid Pay Card Users report, which gives you each enrollment date, and chase anyone past two weeks. Sign in to your own rapid! Card account when a card has not arrived. And tell your Crew that switching back to direct deposit means re-entering their bank details from scratch — the old ones are gone.


Who this applies to

  • Payroll and back-office staff — you run the pay cycle, so you are the one who notices when somebody’s pay went the wrong way.
  • Recruiters and onboarders — you are with the Crew member at the moment enrollment makes sense, which is usually during onboarding. You can also see and change their enrollment on their profile, so you need to know when not to.
  • Whoever owns supplier relationships — the account with rapid! is opened by your agency directly, that has to happen before anything else, and it is also where you sign in to check on cards later.
  • Administrators — nothing here is yours to configure, but you will be asked where the field came from.
The Crew member does most of the work here. They enroll, and they enter their card details. Your job is to make the route available, tell them what to expect, and catch the ones who stall halfway.

What rapid! PayCard is — and what it is not

rapid! PayCard
What it doesPay lands on a card instead of a bank account.
What it is notIt is not early access to earned wages. It does not change when somebody is paid, only where the money goes.
Whose choiceThe Crew member’s. They enroll themselves — but your team can see and change that enrollment on the Crew profile, so keeping it their choice is a matter of your process, not the software.
What it changes for youYou approve timesheets and run pay as you do now. The one thing that may change is getting the card details into payroll — on some setups that is a manual step or an export inside your normal pay run.
Nothing in the software stops somebody enrolling a Crew member. The enrollment field sits on the Crew profile and your team can change it. So the rule has to live in your process: do not enroll anybody who has not asked, do not present the card as the default, and do not make it a condition of working for you. Pay-card rules differ from state to state and they change — check your own obligations with your payroll advisor before you launch.

If what your Crew are actually asking for is their money sooner, that is a different thing with different partners. This guide is about the card.


How it works, end to end

Five stages. The first three happen without anyone doing anything. The fourth does not — and that is the whole reason this page exists.

Step 1  ·  The Crew member

They enroll

Through the onboarding document, or the field in the mobile app — whichever routes you have switched on.

↓
Automatic

Step 2  ·  NextCrew

Their details go to rapid!

Sent across on a secure file transfer. Nobody on your team exports a file and nobody emails anything.

↓
Automatic

Step 3  ·  rapid!

The card is issued and posted

rapid! sets up the account on their side and sends the card to the address on the Crew record.

⚠ Nothing happens automatically from here. Nothing chases the next step.

Step 4  ·  The Crew member, by hand

They type the card details into the app

This is the step that gets missed. Until it happens, pay carries on going wherever it went before — usually their bank account.

↓

Step 5  ·  Your payroll system

The card details reach payroll

The details do not pay anybody until payroll has them. How they get there depends on your agency and on what your payroll system can do — somebody keys them in, they flow through automatically, or you run an export from NextCrew and import it into payroll. The export is usually called Bank Detail Export, though the name varies from one setup to another.

Nothing is ever held up by this. Payroll pays to whatever destination it holds when the run happens. Somebody whose card details have not reached payroll yet is paid to their bank that cycle, exactly as before, and to the card from the next run on.

↓

✅ Pay lands on the card

Steps 1 to 3 run on their own, which is exactly why step 4 is easy to assume away.


The two ways your Crew enroll — run both

There are two routes into the card, and you can have both. You should.

RouteHow the Crew member sees itWho it catches
An onboarding documentA document in their joining paperwork, completed like any other form.New starters, at the moment they join.
A field in the mobile appA field on their profile in the app, available whenever they want it.Everyone else — including the people who skipped the document.
People skip the document and want the card later. Somebody signing a stack of joining paperwork is not thinking about how they want to be paid. Months later a colleague mentions the card and now they are interested. Without the app field, that person has nowhere to go and has to ring you. This is the single best reason to run both.

The two routes do the same thing once used. The difference is only when they catch somebody.

If you only enable the onboarding document, nothing will appear to happen for months. A document reaches new starters only. An agency with a settled Crew and no new joiners would see no enrollments at all and conclude the product is broken.

Steps

Step 1: Open your account with rapid!

This is your step, and nothing else can happen until it is done. You set up an account with rapid! directly. It is a relationship between your agency and rapid!, not something NextCrew arranges for you.

rapid! then sets your agency up on their side and confirms that back to NextCrew. That confirmation is what unlocks everything in Step 2.

Start here, and start early. Setting up an account with a card provider involves paperwork and checks on their side. If you are planning a launch date, work backwards from this step rather than from the day you tell your Crew.

Step 2: NextCrew sets up your enrollment routes

Once rapid! has confirmed your account, NextCrew does all of the setup. That covers:

  • Adding the enrollment document to your onboarding paperwork.
  • Adding the enrollment field so it appears in your Crew’s mobile app.
  • Wiring the secure file transfer that sends enrollments to rapid!.

This normally happens during your onboarding with NextCrew. If you are adding the card later, your NextCrew contact arranges the same thing.

There is nothing here for you to configure. No setting to find, no field to build, no file to set up. Ask for both routes rather than one — see above for why.

Step 3: Tell your Crew what to expect

This is the step that decides whether the launch works, and it is the one people skip.

Tell them four things, in this order:

  1. It is optional. Say it first and say it plainly. Nothing changes for anybody who ignores it.
  2. What it is — their pay on a card instead of a bank account. Not earlier pay.
  3. That a card will arrive in the post, and roughly when.
  4. That they must enter the card details in the app when it arrives. This is the one that gets forgotten, so put it last where it stays in the memory, and repeat it when the card is on its way.
Send the reminder, do not rely on the enrollment message. Somebody who enrolled three weeks ago has forgotten what they signed up for. A short message when the card should have landed does more for take-up than anything else on this page. See Message Templates.

Say nothing about fees. What the card costs the Crew member is rapid!’s to explain, it varies by how they use it, and a figure you quote today will be wrong later. Point them at rapid! for that.

Step 4: Track enrollments with the Rapid Pay Card Users report

Run the Rapid Pay Card Users report. It lists the Crew who have enrolled, and it gives you the date each of them enrolled.

The date is the useful part. Work down the list and look for anyone who enrolled a while ago:

EnrolledWhat it probably meansWhat to do
In the last week or soTheir card is still being produced or is in the post.Nothing. Leave it.
Two weeks or more agoEither the card has not arrived, or it has and the details are not in the app.Message them. Ask whether the card arrived, and remind them to enter the details.
A month or more agoSomething stalled and nobody noticed.Contact them directly, and check the address on their Crew record.
Run it weekly while you are launching, then monthly. Enrollments arrive in a rush when you first tell people and then trickle. The rush is when people get stuck, so that is when the report is worth the two minutes.

Your rapid! account is the second place to look

You can also sign in to your own rapid! Card account and see everyone who has registered from your agency.

The two views answer different questions, and knowing which to open saves a lot of guessing:

WhereWhat it tells you
Rapid Pay Card Users report, in NextCrewWho enrolled through your enrollment routes, and the date each of them did.
Your rapid! Card accountWhat rapid! has done since — who they hold as registered, and where a card has got to.
Your pay runWho is actually being paid to a card.
NextCrew owns the enrollment; rapid! owns the card. That is why there are two places to look rather than one. If somebody appears in the NextCrew report but not in your rapid! account, the question is about the enrollment reaching them. If they appear in both but have no card, the question is about the card.

Step 5: Check the first pay run

On the first pay run after anyone enrolls, check where their money actually went before you finalize.

A Crew member showing on the Rapid Pay Card Users report but still paid to a bank account has almost certainly not entered their card details. That is expected, not a fault — but it is worth catching before they ring you.

The report tells you who enrolled. The pay run tells you who is actually being paid to a card. The people on the first list and not the second are your whole follow-up list.


Where the enrollment lives on the Crew profile

Open a Crew member and go to Additional Information. The rapid! enrollment field is there.

Two things your team can do from it:

  • See whether that person has enrolled. Useful when somebody rings and you want the answer while they are on the phone, rather than running a report.
  • Change the enrollment. The field is editable.
Being able to change it is not a reason to. The card is the Crew member’s choice. Use the field to check what somebody chose, and to fix a genuine mistake they have asked you to fix — not to enroll somebody who has not asked. Nothing in the system will stop you, which is exactly why this needs to be a rule your team knows.

For one person, the profile is quicker than the report. For a list, the report is quicker than the profile. Use whichever matches the question.


The gap that generates the tickets

Worth stating on its own, because it is the single thing your team will be asked about.

A Crew member can be fully enrolled and holding a card and still not be paid to it. Nothing is broken when that happens. The card details have simply not been entered yet, and nothing in the process nags them to do it.

What they sayWhat is actually going on
“I signed up for the card weeks ago and nothing happened”Enrollment worked. Either the card has not arrived yet, or it has and the details are not in the app.
“I got my card but my pay went to my bank again”The card details are not in the app. This is the common one. Failing that, they are in the app but had not reached payroll before that run.
“Is my card not working?”The card is almost certainly fine. Pay was never routed to it.
Answer all three the same way: ask whether they have entered the card details in the app. It resolves the large majority of these without anyone looking anything up. If you need to check when they enrolled, the Rapid Pay Card Users report has the date.

If it’s not working

They enrolled but pay went to the bank

Check first: has the Crew member entered their card details in the mobile app? This is the cause nearly every time.

If you want to confirm the enrollment itself registered, open their profile and look at Additional Information.

If they have, and pay still went the old way, the card details had most likely not reached payroll in time for that run. Check when they entered them against the point in your pay cycle where card details get into payroll — the Bank Detail Export, or whoever keys them in. Details that arrive after that apply to the next run, not the one that just went out. Nobody is underpaid by this; they are paid to their bank that cycle and to the card from the next one.

If neither explains it, escalate with four facts: the Crew member’s name, the enrollment date from the Rapid Pay Card Users report, the date they entered the card details, and the pay date that went wrong. Those four are what anyone looking into it will ask for.

No card ever arrived

Check the address on their Crew record. The card is posted, so an out-of-date address is the usual reason. Fix it on the record before doing anything else.

Then check how long it has actually been. The Rapid Pay Card Users report gives you their enrollment date, so you are working from a fact rather than from what they remember. A card takes time to be produced and posted, so a few days is normal.

If the address is right and enough time has passed, sign in to your rapid! Card account and look the person up. That tells you whether rapid! holds them as registered and whether a card is in progress. It is the difference between “it is coming” and “something stalled”, and you can answer the Crew member either way on the spot.

If the portal shows nothing useful, contact your rapid! account manager. Have the Crew member’s name, their enrollment date from the report, and the address on their record. The card is rapid!’s to issue, so they are the right people — but go to them with those three facts rather than a question.

They cannot find where to enter the card

The card details go in the mobile app, where their pay details are held — the same place they would set up a bank account.

If they are looking and cannot see it, check they are on a current version of the app before assuming anything is wrong.

Walk one Crew member through it once, and write down what they see. The app is set up differently from one agency to the next, so a screen-by-screen description from your own app is worth more to your team than any general instruction. Do it during your pilot group and you will never answer this question from memory again.

Someone wants to go back to direct deposit

They can. The card is a choice, and choices can change.

Their old bank details are not still sitting there. Removing the card details does not bring back the bank account they used before. The Crew member has to enter their bank details again from scratch. Tell them to have their account number and sort details to hand before they change anything.

So the order matters:

  1. Get their bank details ready first. Not halfway through.
  2. Then replace the card details with the bank details in the app.
  3. Do it well before your pay cut-off, not on the day pay runs.

Somebody who removes their card details and stops there has no pay destination on file at all. That is the failure worth preventing, and one sentence at the right moment prevents it.


What to tell your Crew up front

Tell themBecause otherwise
The card is optional and nothing changes if they ignore itSomebody feels pushed into a pay method they did not want, which is the worst possible start — and the software will not catch it for you
It changes where they are paid, not whenThey expect their money faster and are disappointed by a product that never promised it
A card will arrive in the postThey see an unexpected card and assume it is junk mail
They must enter the card details in the appThey wait for something to happen automatically, and it never does
rapid! can explain what the card costs to useYour team ends up answering questions about somebody else’s fees, from memory
If they ever switch back, they re-enter their bank details from scratchThey remove the card expecting their old account to return, and end up with no pay destination at all

How to know it’s complete

  • ✅ Your account with rapid! is open and confirmed.
  • ✅ Both enrollment routes are live — the onboarding document and the field in the mobile app.
  • ✅ Your Crew have been told it is optional — in writing, not just in conversation.
  • ✅ Your team knows the enrollment field is editable on the Crew profile, and knows not to use it to enroll anybody.
  • ✅ At least one Crew member has gone all the way through: enrolled, received a card, entered the details, and been paid to it.
  • ✅ Somebody on your team runs the Rapid Pay Card Users report on a named day and chases anyone whose enrollment date is more than two weeks old.
  • ✅ Somebody on your team knows how card details get from NextCrew into your payroll system on your setup — keyed in, automatic, or a Bank Detail Export — and who does it.
  • ✅ Your support team knows the first question to ask is “have you entered the card details in the app?”
  • ✅ Somebody on your team can sign in to your rapid! Card account, and knows who your rapid! account manager is.

Best practices

  • Start the rapid! account before you plan anything else. It gates every other step and it runs on somebody else’s timetable.
  • Launch to a small group first. Ten Crew members will teach you where your own process snags, and ten confused people is recoverable.
  • Ask for both enrollment routes, not one. The document alone reaches new starters only.
  • Follow up when the card should have landed. The single highest-value message in the whole process.
  • Never chase somebody who did not enroll. They said no. Asking twice turns an option into pressure.
  • Make it a stated rule that nobody enrolls a Crew member on their behalf. The field is editable, so the only guardrail is one your team agrees to.
  • Keep fee questions with rapid!. Answering from memory is how your team ends up wrong about somebody else’s money.
  • Check addresses before you launch. Cards go in the post, and stale addresses are the commonest reason one never arrives.
  • Know your way around your rapid! account before you need it. The first time you sign in should not be while somebody is waiting on the phone.
  • Re-offer it at a sensible moment, not on a schedule. Onboarding is the natural one.


FAQ

Q: Can we require our Crew to take the card?

A: Treat it as an option you offer, never a condition. Be aware the software will not enforce that for you — the enrollment field is on the Crew profile and your team can change it. Check your own obligations with your payroll advisor; pay-card rules vary by state.

Q: Can we enroll a Crew member on their behalf?

A: You can — the field under Additional Information on their profile is editable by your team. You should not, unless they have asked you to. Use it to check what somebody chose, or to fix a mistake they have reported, not to sign anybody up.

Q: How do I check whether one person has enrolled?

A: Open their profile and look under Additional Information. For one person that is quicker than running the report.

Q: Is this the same as paying our Crew early?

A: No. The card changes where pay lands, not when. Early access to already-earned pay is a different product with different partners.

Q: What does the card cost the Crew member?

A: That is rapid!’s to explain, and it depends on how the card is used. Point your Crew at rapid! rather than answering from memory.

Q: Do we need our own account with rapid!?

A: Yes, and it is the first step. Your agency opens an account with rapid! directly. rapid! sets you up on their side and confirms it to NextCrew, and only then can the enrollment routes be switched on.

Q: Who sets up the enrollment document and the app field?

A: NextCrew does, normally as part of your onboarding. There is nothing for you to configure. Ask for both routes rather than one.

Q: Can we offer both enrollment routes at the same time?

A: Yes, and you should. The document catches new starters; the app field catches everyone else, including people who skipped the document and want the card later.

Q: How do we see who has enrolled?

A: Run the Rapid Pay Card Users report. It lists who enrolled and when. The enrollment date is what tells you who has been waiting too long.

Q: Can we see our registered users on rapid!'s side too?

A: Yes. Sign in to your rapid! Card account and you can see everyone registered from your agency. Use it when somebody is in the NextCrew report but says no card has arrived — it shows you whether a card is actually in progress.

Q: Do we have to export anything or send a file?

A: No. Once a Crew member enrolls, their information goes across automatically over a secure file transfer. Nobody on your team sends anything.

Q: Why has nothing happened since our Crew member enrolled?

A: Most likely one of two things: the card is still in the post, or it has arrived and the details have not been entered in the app yet. The second is far more common.

Q: Does the card show up in NextCrew once rapid! issues it?

A: Not on its own. The Crew member enters the card details in the mobile app themselves, and that is what routes their pay.

Q: Can somebody switch back to their bank account later?

A: Yes, but their old bank details are gone. Removing the card does not restore the account they used before — they enter their bank details again from scratch. Have those details ready before changing anything, and do it well before your pay cut-off.

Q: Does this change how we run payroll?

A: Barely. You approve timesheets and run pay as you do now, and only the destination of one person’s money changes. Depending on your setup, getting the card details into payroll may be a manual step or a Bank Detail Export inside your normal pay run — your NextCrew contact will tell you which applies to you.

Was this article helpful?

That’s Great!

Thank you for your feedback

Sorry! We couldn't be helpful

Thank you for your feedback

Let us know how can we improve this article!

Select at least one of the reasons
CAPTCHA verification is required.

Feedback sent

We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article