In a bow to tight economic times, SunTrust Banks on Monday rolled out some new features on its business credit cards that allow companies to keep a tighter rein on employee travel and other spending.

SunTrust unveiled the changes to its Enterprise Spend Platform product at the National Business Travel Association convention in Los Angeles.

One of the key changes, the Atlanta bank said, is a "compliance monitor feature" that allows company managers to build in automated alerts to remind employees to use certain preferred vendors or to turn in expense reports on time.

"With so many companies seeing substantial increases in their [travel and entertainment] expenses, it's extremely important that companies are able to see, control and effectively modify expense behaviors," said Greg Hammermaster, senior vice president of SunTrust Commercial Card Services, in a press release.