Simplicity, Safety, Spending. The Three Reasons to Look at A Travel and Expense Management Solution.

Not everything is as easy as 1, 2, 3. But if you’re considering taking a look at travel and expense management systems, these three are the real benefits that really matter. And when you wipe away all the marketing and promises, the business impact becomes pretty clear.

1. Let’s start with the easy one: Simplicity. Anything you do to make it easier for your employees to do their jobs is good for business. When it clears administrative hassles off your desk, too…well, it’s a bonus.

Putting an app-based travel and expense management solution in place does both. Imagine if your employees could book and manage their trips with a few simple taps on their phone, and all the itinerary and credit card data could get pulled together for one easy look.

A simple snapshot of their receipts is all it takes to complete an expense report, so instead of sifting through paperwork – or avoiding it altogether – travelers get you accurate spend information instantly. In fact, what if the solution did it for them, automatically. You’d no longer have to wait for outdated, erroneous information; you’d just get the right data right away.

According to a recent IDC MarketScape report1 , that type of simple future isn’t as hard to find as you’d think. And when it’s easier for employees to plan for, complete, and wrap up a business trip, it’s easier for them to do their work and enjoy their work. Yes. Productivity goes up, and so does engagement.

2. Your team’s safety has always been most important, yet it’s somehow even more important today. And when you send your people out into an ever-changing and increasingly complex world, you need to know they’re going to be okay. The only way to be certain of this is to know where they are, regardless of how they got there.

T&E solutions, as outlined in the IDC Marketscape, allow you to collect every itinerary detail from every traveler – no matter where the trip was booked. And if that data gets combined with transaction information that’s captured as travelers use their cards, now you have all the details to pinpoint every employee’s location.

So if there’s an emergency, you know who’s affected. More importantly, you can reach them and, if necessary, bring them home.

This is how duty of care gets done. And it’s not that hard to do.

3. Not everything is about money – even in business. But money does matter, and cash and capital matter even more today. And simplifying T&E processes offers a tangible financial boost in addition to the enhanced experience and improved safety advantages we just outlined.

Simply put: When you can see all your spending, you can control all your spending. And when you see every booking – no matter where or how bookings happen – you’ll see what’s actually being spent. This makes it easier to spot and capitalize on savings. You can track spending against your budget and, because there’s a bright light shining on what used to be hidden spend, you can bring a stronger position to the bargaining table with your suppliers.

Want more? This kind of visibility (and the control that rides along with it) helps keep you on top of policy compliance, regulatory requirements, and even things like VAT reclaim. Add it all up, and you’ll not just see what’s spent, you’ll see what’s pending and what’s planned, so you can make sure your money is going precisely where you want it.
Yes. You should be looking at a travel and expense solution, but what should you be looking for?

The answers to this are fairly simple, too. In short, you want your travel and expense management solution to be built with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, and you want it to improve the user experience by being simple, mobile, adaptable, and able to integrate with the systems you’re already using.

Find that, and you’ll see all your spending.

• 1IDC Presentation, sponsored by SAP Concur, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Corporate Travel Booking Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment, doc #US45655219e, December 2019