Top Business Travel Expense Management Tips
Category :
General
By
STELLA TODD
Let’s Imagine, you are just back home from an extended business trip after handling multiple clients, attending multiple boring conferences, and, the most challenging part, laughing at all your boss’s weird jokes. All is done, but now another sword is hanging upon your head expense management. Now you might be thinking, why didn’t you do this before? What can you do? Water has gone above heads. Still, you don’t need to be stressed because we are going to discuss top business travel management tips in this post. The ingredients are ready, so let’s cook the story right now.
But before this, first, we should understand what business travel expenses are?
What Are Business Travel Expenses?
During your job, you might be assigned the task of meeting a client who is not in your town, and for that meeting, you have to travel out of town, so the costs you incur during this trip are called business travel expenses. When you move towards luxury corporate travel services, the next step is travel expenses including all the mandatory expenses required during your travel, like expenses for transportation, overnight accommodations, meals, and all the important things required during your business trip.
Plan Ahead
Booking in advance is the most crucial part of your business expense management, as last-minute bookings can result in spending some extra pennies. Why pay more when you have a chance to save? Book your flight in advance, at least 50 days ahead, to save a considerable amount on your flight booking. Not only this, but booking in advance also helps you avail yourself of other benefits like upgrading your seat if you want, and you don’t have to pay a lot for the changeable ticket in case there are little changes to your plans. Reduce travel booking stress and enjoy greater flexibility and convenience during your travel.
Incidental Expenses
When planning your expenses, don’t forget to add some incidental expenses. Firstly, encourage your employees not to spend on incidental expenses. But sometimes it’s not complimentary. It’s the need, so in that case, it’s important to have some amount aside for that specific spending. Now, what are the incidental expenses? Incidental expenses are like ancillary fees incurred on top of the main service or item paid for when you are traveling for business meetings or conferences. For example, an employee takes a cab and gives them a tip because you think they are charging you less for the ride. So, the tip you gave the driver is an incidental expense, and the main expense is the cab fare.
Make Your Travel Sustainably
This may not be a favorable activity for a lot of business travelers, but getting thrifty with your travel expense management adds to cost reduction. Sometimes, it also makes your business travel more sustainable and eco-friendlier. Booking a business class or first class seat is not only a pricey deal but also comes with a higher carbon footprint. In the same way, booking a seat in economy class not only helps you save a few extra pennies but also promotes a healthier environment.
Set Expense Limit
To stay within your budget, it is important to set travel expenses limits. This allows you to stay within the expense limit instead of spending more than your budget. Here are some expense limit factors to consider
Transportation
Encourage your employees to choose cost-effective means of transport.
Accommodation
When selecting a hotel, give your employees a standard budget so they can book hotels within that budget.
Meals
Set a meal allowance per day. Let your employee select their meal price, but make sure to remind them of your budget.
Entertaining
It’s a business trip, so entertainment is not part of your trip until or unless you need to have some fun activities due to the client’s frank nature.
Add extras
Add all other small but necessary expenses like WIFI access, parking, printing, etc. Opting for good executive travel services can help you save big amount over
Some Additional Expense-Reducing Tips
- Create an entire business travel expense management plan.
- Ask your employees to use public or shared transportation.
- good corporate event travel management agency
Expense Tracking Tips
It is not easy to track every expense of your travel, but if you follow this as your regular activity, you can easily manage it. Never leave it for later, especially if you are not good at memorizing. Tag each expense to have an easy record of your expenses. In this way, whenever you have to review your expenses, you don’t need to spend a long time finding each expense search by the trip type, department or expenses. Implementing the right practices for expense management can help you save a lot. As you have seen in this post above, with the one right step, you can efficiently plan your business trip. Plan, create your expense limit, and monitor a huge difference in your business travel expenses. Read the full post to efficiently manage your business travel expenditures.
Most View
