Travel and entertainment expense category is a critical spend area in any business. Companies have started implementing the pre-trip approval process to control travel spending. On the flip side, the pre-trip approval process also has significant pitfalls that frustrate business travelers. The good thing is that the pitfalls can be avoided by using policy and technology.
The pre-trip approval process is not the same for all the spend areas. For instance, in a procure-to-pay system, it is easy to manage various purchases. Simply you can have a contract with a supplier, negotiate prices, and load the items in the catalog. Employees will requisition the goods and get them approved.
A pre-trip approval process serves the same purpose but comes with some challenges such as the supplier base, and price fluctuations. And, there are thousands of travel providers in the market including airlines, rental cars, hotels, rail companies, and taxi vendors. Besides this, there are millions of flight combinations such as city pairs, and cabin classes. Airlines often adjust their ticket prices based on supply and demand, even from minute to minute. So are hotels, however not that often.
All these make the pre-trip approval process for travel more complicated than for other spend categories. However, you can have a system that works for everyone if you implement these best practices:
The difference that technology brings
Some companies have a manual pre-trip approval process, where employees have to email their manager the basic information about the business trip. By the time it is approved, the prices may vary and then employees need to submit again for approval with the new price. This is why the manual pre-trip process is not that efficient as expected.
On the other hand, a few companies have a better process in place, where employees use a web-based form/expense management solution to submit their travel requests and estimate their budgets. This process also has major drawbacks; there’s room for errors or data manipulation. Additionally, the approver will not know whether the estimated cost is reasonable and within the policy.
The pre-trip approval process has to be automated. The system has to automatically populate the available prices for the key things based on company policy like preferred suppliers. In this way, approvers can rest assured that the prices are reasonable and within the policy.
Integration with travel portal is important
The pre-trip approval system should be integrated with the travel booking system like SutiTravel, which means that when employees book tickets through the corporate booking tool and click submit, the travel info should be routed for approval before it gets ticketed. The request should contain all the details and indicate that the bookings are within the policy. This makes it easy for the approver to request, approve, or reject the line item. If the request is approved, the trip gets automatically ticketed.
Handling exceptions enabled
When managers get bombarded with approvals, sometimes they may go on auto-pilot and approve everything. Instead, you can request approval for aspects that are expensive or violate company policy; this would make managers pay more attention and approve requests more quickly. Automated pre-trip approval lets you filter, flag, and notify the approver if expense requests don’t comply with the company’s policy.
One-level approvals are good to go
Adopting multiple levels of approval is the most common pitfall that organizations do. This slows down the process, and unless an expense line item is expensive, one-level approval would be sufficient. Yes, sometimes one approver may be unreachable; however, this can be avoided by the delegate approver functionality, wherein approvals can be delegated when the approver is out-of-office.
Implement auto-ticket feature
Not always will the approvers know when they will be out of the office, and even if they do; they may sometimes fail to make provisions for their absence. The solution is to add rules that auto-ticket a reservation if the approver has not taken any action within a certain time frame. This would save your money as approval delays would cost you more. In some cases, auto-ticketing would not work well; hence those instances can be kept out of the auto-approval queue.
Mobility is the key
At times managers will be on business travel, so to keep the approval process moving, the system needs to work with mobile devices so that approvers can work while on the go. Some systems have actionable email notifications, which means the manager can review the expense line items and click approve or reject button within the email. Therefore, you need not log into a web-based system to review and approve the requests.
Let technology do your work
Travel can be expensive if you don’t have an effective system in place. Organizations need to have an automated pre-trip approval system that can incorporate the policies and limits in the booking process. Technology should be used to handle exceptions instead of approving every trip. An exception-based approach allows organizations to use their time and resources productively while ensuring employees stay within the policy.
Sireesha
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