Business travel is back in full swing, poised to grow to almost $1.8 trillion by the end of 2027. With 79% of executives agreeing business travel is “essential to company operations,” business leaders are discovering a variety of benefits to business travel—even amid the proliferation of hybrid working arrangements for employees in recent years.
Valuable as it may be, business travel introduces inefficiencies and other issues. Research shows that 71% of finance executives say that travel and expense (T&E) management absorbs too much of their finance teams’ time and attention. What’s more, 61% report that their travel and expense policies are frequently or sometimes violated.
CFOs have a responsibility to drive down violations and ensure their teams can use their time wisely while managing T&E in ways that deliver advantages to the business. By taking a digital approach to T&E management through a trusted commercial card program, CFOs can reduce inefficiencies and better control travel costs and other expenses.
1. Know exactly what your policy is.
Achieving the right digital approach starts with taking stock of existing policies and processes and how well they align with the company's overall goals and objectives. Many CFOs may find their teams spend too much time on manual workflows and approvals, or that employees regularly overspend on travel and expenses instead of adhering to policies.
Some companies may not even have T&E policies in place—leaving employees in the dark about what they’re allowed to spend, where and when. (Research shows that 77% of finance professionals report having T&E policies, leaving a substantive 23% operating without them.)
When companies do have T&E policies in place, employees benefit.
“A travel and expense policy provides clarity to employees and protects them as well,” says Dan Skaggs, head of product for the U.S. Bank Commercial Rewards Card. “Most employees want to do what's right, and the best kind of policy makes it really clear what’s approved and what isn’t.”
2. Keep it simple for employees.
Expense policies also protect companies—helping ensure they adhere to the Internal Revenue Service’s rules regarding reimbursements and any applicable federal, state and local laws around taxes and reporting (among other requirements).
But companies can’t expect their employees to adhere to their T&E policies if the policies are inaccessible or difficult to understand. Many employees may not even know what their policy is or where to find it.
“Companies need to not only have expense policies, but also make them as simple and straightforward as possible,” says Skaggs. “A good measurement for that is page count. If you have an 80-page expense policy—which is not uncommon—how effectively can employees get what they need to know from it, compared to a 10-page policy?”
3. Don’t just have a policy; enforce it.
Employees who don’t know their companies’ guidelines for purchases and travel can easily violate those guidelines. But when companies don’t consistently enforce their policies, violations may go unaddressed.
Enforcement is especially difficult for companies that rely on paper, email and spreadsheets to execute their expense reporting processes. These companies tend to have less visibility and control over their processes than companies that manage travel and expenses through digital solutions—contributing to longer reimbursement cycles and allowing policy violations to go unnoticed until it’s too late.
4. Build your policy into a digital solution.
When companies manage travel and expenses using a digital platform, they can automatically enforce their policies—with minimal need to train employees on company policies and processes.
"There's a lower change management load because it's easy and intuitive, with the policy built in," says Skaggs. "No one has to refer to a paper printout and dig through it for details before they make a purchase or book a flight or hotel, because it's baked into how the platform works.”
A better way to manage travel and expenses
Ultimately, CFOs that take a digital approach to T&E management by embracing a trusted commercial card program gain high-value tools and features empowering them to drive up policy adherence and gain more control and visibility into travel and expenses.
With commercial cards, companies can easily set spending parameters for purchases and travel based on employees’ roles and job duties. Setting card limits and restricting merchant category codes where appropriate protects companies from fraud, misuse and policy violations.
And with the U.S. Bank Commercial Rewards Card, CFOs can see all of their cardholders’ transactions on one screen and access expense management, travel booking and policy and reimbursement through a single solution—making monitoring and reporting on travel and expenses much easier.
This kind of control and visibility only increases in value as CFOs see more team members set off on business trips in the months and years ahead.
To learn more about how the U.S. Bank Commercial Rewards Card replaces time-consuming, manual processes with a single, intuitive platform, connect with a U.S. Bank corporate payment solutions expert today.
