Do your company's business travel costs seem impossible to control? From airfare and hotels to meals, transportation, and incidentals, travel expenses can quickly spiral out of budget without the right expense management strategy.
However, new technological advances and smarter policies provide inno- vative ways to rein in these costs and streamline processes.
Leverage Online Booking Tools
Using online booking platforms allows your team to reserve compliant travel easily while unlocking savings and rewards for the company. By centralizing bookings, the company can enforce the use of preferred vendors, ensuring the best volume discounts are secured.
These platforms also integrate with expense reporting, consolidating valuable data that can be used to optimize policies around various aspects such as trip types and travel classes.
In addition to these benefits, your team members are incentivized to adhere to travel program guidelines through rewards. Points or miles are offered when they use the tool to book work trips, creating a mutually beneficial setup. With vendor discounts and traveler rewards, online booking not only saves money but also provides useful data. This helps streamline the process of managing corporate travel expense.
Introduce Automated Auditing Systems
Expense auditing programs use artificial intelligence (AI) to apply customizable rules designed to flag potentially non-compliant charges, duplicate claims, or instances of fraud for review. Expenses that clearly fall within the policy get quickly approved.
Automated flags serve as prompts for audit teams, signaling the need for further investigation before reimbursement. This system speeds up approvals and spares finance staff from the tedious task of line-by-line audits. The significant time savings can be redirected toward a deeper analysis of spen- ding patterns, compliance issues, and other useful insights.
Moreover, AI auditing ensures consistent enforcement of travel policies across the company. This is vital to controlling travel expenses and streamlining the entire process.
Provide Company Credit Cards
The use of corporate cards can greatly simplify the tracking of expenses. Instead of staff members paying out of pocket and then seeking reimbur- sement, all work-related spending is consolidated on monthly statements. This simplifies reconciliation and provides visibility into expenses through tran- saction coding.
Company card systems also offer the advantage of enabling the monitoring of adherence to pre-determined restrictions on airlines, hotels, rental cars, and more. To further enhance control, customized settings for each cardholder can be applied. These may include dollar amount limits or controls on purchase categories.
When managed well, corporate credit cards become an indispensable tool for controlling travel expenses. They streamline the process, increase transparency, and allow for greater oversight.
Set Per Diem Rates
Establishing tiered daily per diem rates is an effective way to manage expenses. These rates-applicable for meals, transportation, tips, and other expenses-are determined by city, eliminating the need for individual receipts. It's important to balance these rates with reasonable local costs, which would understandably be higher for destinations like New York compared to Kansas City.
With the per diem rates in place, policies should clearly outline which expenses qualify for per diems and which ones require actual receipts. This clarity prevents confusion and ensures transparency in the process.
A more efficient approach could be to remove case-by-case approval during submission. Instead, a system that combines per diems with auditing spot checks could be implemented. This method strikes a logical balance between oversight and efficiency, leading to a smoother and faster expense management process.
Enforce Expense Policies
Communicating and enforcing expense policies establishes compliance habits. On the other hand, permitting reasonable exceptions as needed shows flexibility. For instance, allowing a higher hotel rate when the conference venue is sold out demonstrates adaptability to specific circumstances.
This flexibility is crucial in striking the right balance between strict adherence to policies and acknowledging the real-world limitations travelers face. Too much rigidity can backfire, leading to dissatisfaction and non-compliance. Conversely, a practical approach that accommodates reasonable exceptions can lead to staff satisfaction and buy-in.
By setting clear standards and applying exceptions judiciously, you encourage compliance while maintaining the integrity of your program. This balance ensures your expense policies are both effective and respected by your team.
Utilize Reporting Software
Comprehensive reporting combines various data points such as booking details, expense entries, card transactions, and audit results. This gives a clear overview of travel spending. It helps identify areas of high expenditure, like specific routes, travelers, or vendors. Spotting these trends can lead to potential savings and help refine company policies.
This integrated approach to reporting also uncovers any issues with compliance. These insights can guide necessary training or updates to company policies. The use of advanced analytics turns scattered spending data into valuable information. This strategic intelligence can help optimize costs in your company's travel program.
Moreover, pairing these insights with customizable visualizations provides clarity. This can be instrumental in making informed decisions about managing these expenses.
The Takeaway
With forethought and strategic planning, companies can transform uncontrolled business travel expenses into optimized spending that adds value. The right mix of technologies, like automated auditing and consolidated reporting combined with clear policies, will help realize substantial savings.
Ultimately, taking an innovative approach drives a streamlined travel program that reduces costs while keeping your team satisfied. When managed strategically, corporate travel becomes an investment with measurable returns. Are you ready to optimize your company's travel expense management?
