3 Tips to Improve Your Travel Policy

Published January 05, 2016
3 tips to improve your travel policy

Travel policies are put in place to prevent expense fraud and abuse from eroding business profits. After all, if there were no policies, everybody would stay at the four-star luxury spa versus the more serviceable airport hotel.

Still, enforcing a travel policy among busy execs can be tricky. Which is why integrating the policies right into your expense reporting system is your best safeguard. Here are 3 tips to improve your travel policy:

1. Set spending thresholds

In actuality, it doesn't matter if your employee stays at the luxury spa. He/she may have scored a good deal and you're happy for them. What matters to your bottom line is the cost. So the number one way to improve your travel policy is to set spending thresholds. This quantifies your employee's travel choices and removes any subjective guesswork from the decision-making.

2. Approved list of vendors

You may have special rates negotiated with certain vendors. In order to maintain those rates, you have likely committed to some level of volume. In the expense report, your employees can select from a list of approved vendors and even have the approved rate automatically populated in the report.

3. Approved employees, approved timeframes, approved expenses

Let's face it: business conditions change direction like the wind. Which is why you need an expense management system that is flexible and responsive. There may be certain situations that call for an employee to hop on a plane and go visit an account. Maybe to avert a client meltdown, that employee only needs to charge expenses for one-week but no longer. You can even stipulate in the system the types of expenses that are approved.

To learn more about online expense management, watch our free webinar.