Destination efficiency: Why effective business travel management is crucial today.

Although personal travel is taking off this summer, business travel is having a more challenging time gaining altitude. Some industry analysts say that it could be well into 2025 before demand returns to pre-pandemic levels.

Continued economic uncertainty has organizations carefully balancing budgets and benefits when it comes to corporate travel. But the cost of travel’s carbon footprint is an increasingly important factor in assessing corporate travel cost benefit. This type of scrutiny adds to an already typically messy process of controls over bookings and tracking of costs. Luckily, the integration of travel booking software into expense management software provides visibility and control without slowing down your road warriors. 

Why is business travel lagging behind? 

As anyone who’s taken a trip recently realizes, airfare and hotels are particularly expensive right now. The rising cost of travel plus the current belt-tightening economic environment adds up to an increased focus on travel management, including looking at the ROI of travel. The GBTA reports that 73% of business travelers expect that inflation will impact the likelihood of future trips. 

Organizations are also paying more attention to the carbon footprint of business trips: A Deloitte survey found that 42% of U.S. respondents are implementing structures for carbon-emission budgets similar to financial budgets. About one-third of respondents say they will need to cut back on business travel by more than 20% in order to meet their sustainability targets. In response to these goals, more companies are hiring Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) — the number of CSOs in the U.S. tripled in 2021 alone.

But business travel hasn’t reached its final destination yet. 

Don’t write off business travel — many organizations continue to rely on it. According to the GBTA, 85% of business travelers said that travel is essential for achieving their goals. This is particularly true of millennial workers.

Although many businesses successfully transitioned to virtual meetings and events in 2020, many continue to find in-person interactions more effective. Research from TravelPerk shows that every dollar spent on travel leads to $12.50 in additional revenue. 

Travel management: The key to smooth sailing in a turbulent business climate.

Balancing the competing demands of tighter budgets, environmental accountability, and business necessity requires greater visibility into travel arrangements. It’s more important than ever that travel policies are clear and budgets are adhered to. 

Thanks to a wide array of travel booking platforms, making travel arrangements is easier than ever. But enforcing compliance with company policies and budgets remains challenging when travel and expense management are separate.

Airbase and TravelPerk: Goodbye tedium, hello efficiency.

Travel booking is a notoriously tedious process for many business travelers — even in the best of times. Booking flights, hotels, and other transportation within budget is tricky for employees who may not understand all travel policies, and find themselves juggling multiple platforms to book, request approval, and submit receipts. 

Finance must also navigate multiple systems for complete oversight of travel spending, including expense management platforms and corporate card statements. And the month-end close involves pulling information from different sources, looking for receipts, and figuring out travel budget discrepancies. 

Airbase Travel Management with a TravelPerk integration puts finance teams and budget owners in the driver’s seat. At the same time, employees enjoy a hassle-free booking experience, while knowing they are compliant. 

Here’s how it works:

• Finance sets booking cost limits and travel policies in TravelPerk. These rule-based policies easily ensure compliance and are flexible to be configured to meet your company’s requirements. Best practice guidance for this setup can be made available.
• Employees make travel arrangements in TravelPerk, which has the world’s largest travel inventory. They can book using several card options, including SVB, Airbase corporate cards, or personal cards. 
• Finance no longer has to chase down receipts since all documentation, including detailed invoices with all travel details, automatically syncs to Airbase. Transactions can be split to ensure accurate categorization of things like air travel or hotels. 
• Transaction details seamlessly sync to the GL or ERP, so travel budget status is up to date and accessible. This eliminates the need for finance to reconcile travel expenses between systems. The majority of legacy travel booking platforms don’t integrate with a company’s GL or ERP. When they do, they lack the deep integration Airbase has with ERPs like NetSuite and Sage Intacct. 
• When following best practices, employees pay for travel bookings with Airbase’s virtual cards to earn cash back with every transaction and easily secure necessary approvals up front. But if an employee does use their personal card, they can easily submit for reimbursement through Airbase. Money goes straight to their bank account. NetSuite users can reimburse employees from foreign subsidiaries in their local currencies. 

To assess travel plans for their environmental impact, you can customize a virtual card approval workflow to include a Sustainability milestone with specific fields. When an employee uses the Guided Procurement module to request a virtual card for travel, they complete the questions within that milestone, which is then routed to the Sustainability Officer (or similar position) for review and approval. The employee then uses the approved virtual cards when booking on TravelPerk. 

Airbase Travel Management with TravelPerk integration creates unparalleled visibility and control over travel spend by automating processes instead of adding the friction of manual checks and reviews. Discover how to get the control you need to manage budgets and sustainability requirements without sacrificing efficiency. 

Experience a great journey for everyone with the power of Airbase Travel Management with TravelPerk integration. Jump on board with us as we continue to expand the capabilities of this integration by adding additional automation and detail to expense reporting. Start your trip with an interactive tour of Airbase Expense Management!