GUEST BLOG: Expenses: a waste of time? 10 reasons you might want to consider automation…

Automating your expense management process brings with it a number of benefits. If you’re still not sure we hope this list might change your mind…

1) Reduced Costs

By connecting various sources of expense data, and reducing the need for manual data entry, the cost of processing expense reports can be reduced by as much as 78% per transaction. Plus, with accurate and consolidated data, you can make smarter business decisions.

2) Connected Travel

Automating expenses enables your business to explore travel integration too. With an end-to-end process, business travel information can be prepopulated into expense claims. Then it’s much easier for employees to quickly and accurately submit claims for reimbursement.

3) Improved Compliance

Compliance is high on the agenda for many businesses. After all, non-compliance could result in fines that damage your bottom line and your reputation. Using an automated solution enables you to quickly update your policies when necessary or flag exceeded spend thresholds to employees.

4) Mitigated Risk

Data accuracy is essential. Using a solution that imports feeds from travel suppliers and corporate credit card providers means that data is increasingly reliable. This integration creates an accurate audit trail that protects your business from penalties when the tax office pays a visit.

5) Ongoing Savings

Having access to consolidated data makes it easier to analyse spend and identify potential savings. This insight can help your business when developing policies, spotting where better deals could be negotiated with suppliers or where employees may be submitting improper expense claims.

6) Simple Implementation  

Cloud solutions offer minimal implementation costs so ROI can be realised sooner. Mobile and web-based tools means there’s little to no additional infrastructure required. Concur manages maintenance and functionality upgrades too, meaning less work for your business.

7) Growth Ready

As your business grows, you might open new offices or expand into new countries. This brings more expense claims, more complex regulations and sometimes additional currencies. Concur offers a scalable solution – as your business grows, we grow with you. We help you prepare for the future with confidence.

8) Unbiased Approvals

Different employees have different expectations when it comes to booking travel and claiming expenses. What may have been acceptable at their previous company may not be acceptable now. Automated solutions ensure that fair and consistent rules apply to everyone and makes fraud easier to spot.  

9) Increased Productivity

When expenses go digital, managers can access them anywhere at any time. Finance can also see all the open but unapproved expenses in the system, giving them visibility of their upcoming cash flow. Plus, they can easily report on spending across each department to identify areas of excess.  

10) Mobile Optimised

Concur offers a mobile app that enables employees to manage travel and expenses quickly and easily on the move – including photographing receipts and attaching them to their expense claim. Time once spent on expenses becomes time spent on more valuable activities.

This blog was written by Eric Tyre, VP, chief data scientist, CWT. Visit CWT at stand B230 at the Business Travel Show to learn about integrated solutions for your travel programme that offer a seamless, personalised and integrated experience for your travellers.

GUEST BLOG: AUTOMATION IN BUSINESS TRAVEL; WHAT'S AMISS?

Automation has been a buzzword in business travel for a few years now. We have seen the emergence and success of many ideas towards automating various nuances of business travel. From automated travel and expense management systems to self-booking tools and so on, technology has been making steadfast advancements to simplify corporate travel and increase efficiencies. These systems surely go a long way in saving time by doing away with legacy manual methods that are tedious and prone to errors.

But with all this progress, companies are far from realising the true potential of travel automation at a global scale. Let’s take a look at some of the missing pieces of the puzzle:

Lack of owned technology

Organisations that work with multiple partners, and TMCs that provide efficiency solutions to corporates are mostly dependent on third-party online solutions and technologies. As a result, they face challenges with scalability, customisability and compliance adherence. Also, these technology platforms usually demonstrate location-centric capabilities when deployed and are not uniformly globalised in the real sense. However, it is not always feasible for organisations to invest and develop in-house platforms that can support the different nuances of their travel requirements worldwide.

Low adoption of booking tools

Increasing the adoption of online booking tools (OBT) is a pertinent challenge in companies. While the reason for this is largely accrued to the user experience, one of the crucial factors that gets overlooked is the limitation of fare availability on the tools. Let’s not forget that almost all these tools are equipped to only provide GDS content and miss out on a massive, lucrative universe of LCC content and many other travel suppliers whose content doesn’t sit on the OBT. Plus, the fares available on the OBT are host country fares and not global fares sourced locally. Another challenge is global booking tools may not display fares from or can be deployed in certain geographies.   

Country-specific automation tools

There are companies that use automation tools specific to a certain country and become a major roadblock to global travel requirements. That being said, it may not be feasible for a company to always opt for a global tool given implementation and cost constraints. Yet, they are probably missing out on savings they could achieve with global fares accessible anywhere.

Global fares could get locally restricted

Another dimension to the automation game is that even with globally contracted fares, corporates are able to make them accessible to employees only at a local level. Which means, only employees of a host-country have access to the fares available there, but not employees of other countries. Employees traveling to destinations in multiple countries find themselves either struggling or unable to purchase the locally available fares, resulting in higher spends. And even if they manage to get access, payments can be a real pain.

Real automation is achieved when every penny that can be saved has been saved, and people have not struggled in that effort! In order to achieve as much of it as possible, businesses need to start thinking on the lines of what they are missing out in the world of fare content, and how they can standardise their systems at a global level with more control and ownership of technology.  

Authored by Preetham Narayan, Chief Operating Officer, Mystifly Global Consolidation and Technology Service Pte. Ltd.

Mystifly is present at the Business Travel Show 2017 in February, Stand No. B 944. Drop by for a free demo of MyFareBox – the award winning Global Airfare Consolidation platform, and Azygos – Global Corporate Travel Procurement Framework from Mystifly.

Register for a free visitor pass now at www.BusinessTravelShow.com

GUEST BLOG: Controlling travel spend through automation

In a 2014 GBTA Foundation survey,¹ travel managers in North America and Europe cited containing rising costs as their #2 priority, behind enforcing travel policies, and it’s no wonder — given the anticipated 2.6 per cent increase in global hotel rates.² Yet so many corporate travel managers have to scramble just to stay on top of administrative tasks associated with their hospitality programmes — making it hard to focus on reducing costs.  Inefficient processes for sourcing hotel rooms, inadequate negotiating leverage, and noncompliant bookings only add to the problem and make controlling these costs virtually impossible.

To truly get a handle on costs, travel managers need to automate these processes as much as possible. By automating the RFP process, travel managers gain control over negotiations with suppliers by being able to manage higher bid volumes.

But getting great hotel rates isn’t enough. Travel managers need to ensure that their travellers are booking hotels at correct negotiated rates. That’s why automated rate auditing is also crucial to keeping costs down.

Travel programmes that have embraced automation have seen dramatic reductions in their overall spend — by negotiating lower rates on hotels, increasing traveller compliance and by reducing the labour spent manually managing these processes.  If that’s the case, then why aren’t all travel programmes getting on board? 

One reason is complacency; people are just used to doing things a certain way, even when it’s not in their best interest. Perhaps they aren’t bothered by all those nebulous spread sheets, or perhaps they’re afraid they’ll be sacked and replaced by a computer.

More likely, travel managers are simply unaware of the significant return to be made on an investment in an automated travel management solution. And while there’s not much to be done for the complacent, this can and must be addressed.

In 2014, Lanyon partnered with Hobson & Company, experts in ROI/TCO modelling, to help quantify the return on investment of our travel management solutions. We found that, by using our software, travel programmes could receive upwards of 448% ROI over three years.³ Working with Hobson & Company, we’ve also developed a travel programme ROI calculator, which we will be demonstrating this February at the Business Travel Show. 

This post was written by Jean Squires, director business development EMEA, Lanyon. You can visit Lanyon at the Business Travel Show, which takes place 25-26 February 2015 at Olympia Grand in London. Register now at www.businesstravelshow.com/register. 

Notes:

1. A Day in the Life: The Role of Travel Managers (North America and Europe), Global Business Travel Association Foundation, October 2014

2. 2015 Global Travel Price Outlook, Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) & GBTA

3. Driving ROI: The Business Case for Comprehensive Travel Management Software, Lanyon, 2015