For most companies, business travel is a necessary and costly part of any business undertaking. According to a study, corporate travel is the third largest controllable factor that can affect profitability.
Keeping corporate travel expenses under control has to be a management priority, though it’s crucial during rough economic seasons. To help you and your business with this concern, consider these strategies to lessen your company’s travel costs.
Perform an Audit
Reducing your corporate travel expenses is difficult without recognizing which portion of your costs sheet needs attention. Planning to lessen your expenses in your company travel requires you first to determine exactly where your resources are going and where precisely are you spending more than needed.
Thus, consider hiring someone to perform an audit so you will know the flow of your profits and expenses.
Book With Corporate Travel Agencies
When planning to reduce your business travel expenses, a travel agency can help you manage most of your trip’s aspects, saving you money and time in the process. Indeed, they can help you book affordable flights, car rentals, hotel reservations, transportation, and even guide you throughout your travel.
More so, an excellent travel agency can give corporate clients coupons to extensive flight changes for free, a low-fare search engine, secure online financial recording, and some seamless travel management assistance to help you cut your business travel expenses.
Automate Travel Reimbursement Process
Business travel doesn’t just include the costs of accommodation and transportation. It also involves the expenses of the time and labor that your department expands on processing those charges.
Hence, it can be necessary to utilize a workflow automation tool which allows you to upload receipts remotely for immediate processing and make the reimbursement available as quickly as possible. Plus, it has the additional benefit of implementing transparency in bookkeeping, which can minimize the chances of employee frauds.
Utilize Miles and Points
Employees or representatives who frequently travel for business, see points and miles as a massive benefit for the corporate trips.
Employees usually keep these hotel points and flyer miles for themselves. However, your company can claim them if you arrange their purchase precisely and then use them to obtain free and discounted hotel stays and flights for future travels.
Avoid Costly Transportation
Require your representatives to use less expensive shuttle services and transportation if they are available, instead of riding taxis, mainly when employees travel between hotels and airports.
Some large conferences are offering free shuttle service between the conference center and the hotels. Briefly, a requirement for less usage of a taxi can significantly cut travel expenses.
Involve your Employees
Don’t forget to include your employees in your travel budget-cutting exercises and make them feel responsible regarding this matter. You should decide together about the best steps to take to manage expenses effectively.
For instance, suggest an economy flight over a business class flight with better hotel accommodation. They’re more likely to listen to ideas that they are part of creating.
Takeaway
Company travels can be an essential factor in growing your business. However, it can also be stressful if the expenses associated with exceeds what your budget can bear. So, following those steps above and hearing options from Ashe Morgan and other financial institutions, you should be able to reduce your travel expenses effectively.
