How Incorporating Corporate Travel and Expense Management Can Help CMOs to Succeed?

ANUSREE BHATTACHARYA | December 22, 2020 | 789 views

Corporate travel and expense management is one of the cumbersome challenges for CMOs. Travel expenses are the second-highest expense and one of the toughest to control. Getting the best price for a business out of bookings is not enough for a CMO to manage travel expenses. Instead, there are other challenging factors that challenge a company. What are these challenges? Brief information on it can help you identify what your company needs to fix upon to understand this.
  • Lack of data collection
  • No proper visibility into corporate travel spend
  • Lack of an organized corporate travel and expense management process
  • Proper policies
  • Lack of inventory-rich management system
  • No accountability to services under corporate travel and expense policy
  • Lack of technology usage
  • Lack of flexibility
  • Lack of a stable plan for create travel management strategy

Advanced corporate travel and expense management is one of the best solutions today to curb these challenges. So, how can corporate travel and expense management help CMOs succeed in business? Before finding it, a glimpse at the management’s ability and efficiency can help you understand more about it.

Corporate Travel and Expense Management: What Do You Need to Know?

Corporate travel and expense management today has become advanced after the pandemic hit. Today, it is integrated with cutting-edge features through software and is used for mobile and desktop applications. The applications such as spend control & reporting, quick and easy booking, automated expense & reimbursement solutions with receipt capture, back up analytics capabilities, live credit card feeds, and customizable real-time reports are included. All these are powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence.

While many CMOs agree that strategizing corporate travel and expense management is helpful to save costs. They emphasize this because their companies have already practiced advanced corporate travel and expense management. Other corporate expense management companies also implemented corporate travel and expense management. And they recommend incorporating advanced management to curb expenses. If you face challenges in organizing corporate expense systems, this is the right article to learn how to cope with challenges.
 

Corporate Travel and Expense Management: How should you go about it?

Corporate travel and expense management are set to soar up to $1.7 trillion by 2022 globally, right after the travel companies started investing. This indicates the right time for you to start strategizing corporate travel management and its expenses by following practical steps.
 

Consider Technology-based Solutions

Cloud-based corporate travel expense software can simplify your corporate travel management and travel-related expense policies. It leads the entire expense management process to a higher degree of competence. The automation of the corporate travel management process also makes employees easy to file expenses on time.

For example, TripActions is a leading corporate expense management company. It provides top software solutions for corporate travel and expense management. The company promotes technology and offer solutions that come with ease of use.

No Paper Checks

Modern corporate travel and expense management saves ample time by eliminating paper checks. Paper checks make the process tiresome, and there are high chances of error. It also leaves space for employee fraud, which results in tracing difficulty. Thus, paperless work reduces the chances of data tampering and save over-pricing possibilities. Your business can be profitable if you inculcate corporate travel expense software. You can find a list of top software online. Incorporating modern corporate travel and expense management solutions can curb expenses. Practicing the best practices for travel expense management can generate higher revenue for your company.

Set an Accountable Plan on Reimbursement

The reimbursement processes can turn easy with modern corporate travel expense management. The management can help to set an accountable plan and give access to a list of reimbursements. In this way, employees can claim the existing reimbursements in one go. Following this practice for travel expense management can organize all travel and expense management services in one place. And you will never encounter any corporate travel management challenges in the future.

Offer Flexibility 

Employees are the happiest when they have freedom in their work and workflow. And because of this, you need to include a broad travel inventory. Modern corporate travel and expense management offers an inventory-rich system that allows various options to check employees' booking flights, accommodation, or car rentals. For example, Expensify provides a clear insight into the entire trip's actual cost to corporate travelers. Other corporate business travel management companies also implemented advanced corporate travel and expense management systems. And they are shaping the travel industry like other industries.

Choose the Right Software

In this, you need to choose the right corporate travel expense software for your business expense management. A corporate travel and expense management software includes features to manage corporate travel and expense policy, organize travel and expense management services, create a proper travel management strategy, manage corporate travel programs, and sets corporate travel management trips. Often, it appears impossible to organize trips that change. Corporate business travel management can help ease your employees’ load. Similarly, corporate travel and expense management software offers other features, such as:
  • It allows corporate travel managers to keep a proper view of employees traveling on a particular day
  • Budget tracking and travel policy tools through apps help simplify the process of business expense claims for employees as well as the finance team
  • Automated receipt submission reminders help employees to submit the reports on time
  • Ratings of travel and expense management services include car rentals, airfare, lodgings, and accommodation
  • Instant price comparisons
  • 24/7 on the go support for managing a corporate travel program and expense management

  • Self-booking of business trips with the help of the travel booking management software
  • Seamless corporate travel expense reporting

Search about Software Compatibility

When including automation, you need to research corporate travel expense software's compatibility. When you consult a vendor online or in-person and understand software flexibility for travel bookings and transportation services, you can easily select according to your business requirements. By doing so, you tend to save a lot of time and deploy corporate expense systems faster.
 

Consider Setting up a Budget for Corporate Travel and Expense Management

For a company, the budget plays a pivotal role before setting up a new system. Questions like what kind of corporate travel and expense management solution you wish to invest in should also be considered if you want your company to succeed. Incorporating a corporate travel and expense management system involves a series of processes such as setup, installation, support, and customization. Thus, choosing the right software or tool is a crucial matter that compliments all budgetary solutions. Set up a budget, research which software can be beneficial to you, and incorporate it to exercise fast processes of your travel and expense management services.
 

Tips to Create a Successful Corporate Travel and Expense Management

While there are several solutions to corporate travel and expense management and you understood how to implement it, some tips can also lead you to be successful in business by introducing advanced travel and expense management services, corporate travel and expense policy, corporate expense systems, travel and expense management resources and more. Therefore, for this, you need to:
  • Educate employees and help them understand the technological aspects of advanced best practices for travel expense management
  • Set cost-saving strategies with the help of research on what other corporate expense management companies are implementing
  • Be resilient and open to suggestions from your employees

Consider integrating travel management strategies with an automated travel & expense management system. In this way, your company’s corporate travel and expense management will continue to function efficiently. As travel industry leaders are changing their strategies to stand out in 2021, it is time to end fretting over manual corporate travel expenses difficulties. With the help of a dedicated corporate travel management strategy, you can succeed in achieving the goals you set for the New Year in your company.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Travel and Expense (T&E) Management?

To understand corporate travel and expense management, a few features are explained below:
  • Tracking of reports
  • Reporting
  • Costs management
  • Submission of receipts
  • Reimbursement
  • Clearing expenses
  • Management of corporate travel
  • Pricing
  • List of services

How to manage travel expenses in corporate?

To manage travel expense under a corporate travel and expense management system requires the following things:
  • Keep track of details
  • Submit expense report on time
  • Plan ahead
  • Organize data with details
  • Choose a suitable tool or software
  • Create a fast workflow  


How to manage corporate travel and expense budget?

Some careful planning and thorough research on selecting the right tools or software can easily manage corporate travel and expense budget. With this, a business can get a closer insight into the planning of the budget, which results in building of a dignified corporate travel and expense management.

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