Business Trips With a Travel Management System. Business travel management involves the tracking, booking and reporting of business trips. It is a complex process and requires the cooperation of finance departments, office management and traveling employees. Business Trips With a Travel Management System
A good TMS provides an overview of the entire process, which helps to reduce hidden costs. It also allows users to check if the trip booked is in compliance with the company’s policy.
1. Automated Trip Planning
Travel management systems provide a variety of automated trip planning capabilities.
For example, a travel management system could include a pre-approval process where employees submit their requests and a manager checks that these are in compliance with company standards. This saves time for both the employee and the approving manager and prevents miscommunication that can lead to non-compliant trips or overbooking.
Additionally, a travel management system can also have a built-in AI to assist with trip planning. An example of this is a packing assistant that can help travelers decide what to pack for their trip based on destination and length of stay. It will consider the weather and activities and create a personalized list of items to take with them. It will also compare prices from multiple online shopping sites and find the best deal.
2. Travel Policy Management
A travel management system should be able to handle all the nuances associated with your company’s business trip policy. This includes duty of care protocols, safety guidelines, expense parameters (encourage lowest cost options), and transportation guidelines (bus, rail, personal vehicles, ride sharing, etc).
This will save them time and make it easier for them to complete the form.
The system should also allow you to set up authorization workflows for those trips that do not meet the company’s standards. This will allow you to keep the process in your control while still allowing employees to be able to choose a travel option that is most comfortable for them. This will also help your organization avoid unnecessary expenditure.
3. Expense Management
A travel management system with integrated expense tracking enables faster reimbursement and more accurate reporting for the finance team.
The best systems feature built-in expense management capabilities that screen expense claims against policy automatically to identify and mitigate violations. The automated process eliminates the need for finance teams to manually verify expenses against policies, and also helps prevent employees from accidentally submitting fraudulent expenses.
Look for a tool that centrally bills all the expenses associated with a trip, including flights, hotel rentals, taxi rides, and business meals. Then the finance team can receive a single, consolidated invoice at the end of each month. This is an excellent way to build loyalty and encourage compliance.
4. Reporting
Travel management systems come equipped with reporting capabilities that help companies keep track of the budget and other important aspects of corporate travel. They usually include features like cost reporting, expense policy automation, approval workflows and reminders.
While most employees want the opportunity to travel on business, it does come with a hefty bill. For this reason, it is important that travel managers are able to monitor the costs of business trips effectively. Using the information in a travel management system, it is easy to spot wastage and make adjustments where necessary.
It’s also vital that the system is able to identify any non-compliant expenses or bookings. This allows the travel team to make changes that are more cost-effective and in line with strategic objectives. For example, you may be able to save money by focusing on low priced accommodation options or flight carriers. Alternatively, you might save money by taking advantage of recoverable VAT insights needs read more hear.
