Many businesses are implementing business travel management software to manage business visits better as corporate travel is recovering from the epidemic. As a result, the travel management solutions market is anticipated to increase to $17.4 billion by 2030.
But, choosing the best travel management platform shouldn’t be viewed as a proposition given: how crucial it is to manage corporate travel. When choosing travel software for your company, you should consider a few crucial characteristics.
This post will walk you through core features that make travel management software beneficial for your business.
What do you Mean by a Travel Management Software?
Thanks to travel management software, users can access a platform for organising, paying for, and documenting their trip costs. Businesses use this software to centralise records of employee travel costs, streamline buying choices, and manage corporate travel budgets.
Instead of hiring individual agents or sending self-purchased receipts to expense management software, travel management systems allow customers to schedule and automatically document their travel purchases.
This software also makes it easier for managers and staff to communicate about business travel while enabling managers and accountants to run reports and compensate staff. It also ensures employee travel for work purposes complies with corporate guidelines.
Expense management and mileage tracking tools are frequently integrated into or included in the products in this category, although travel management software specialises in recording travel expenditures.
Must-Have Features of a Good Business Travel Management Solution
The benefits of travel management software for your company seem appealing, don’t they? But take your time before you invest. Confirming that the travel management software you select provides the benefits your company needs is essential.
1. Customisable Approval Workflows
What happens if a trip must be scheduled beyond the parameters of your business policy? Now, that’s a good question.
Your travel management system should have approval protocols within the platform so that if anything goes outside of policy, the person planning a trip may request approval and record their trip data. These approval procedures must be flexible enough to allow you to choose different approvers for various teams and regulate the amount of severity. Also, a comprehensive customisation feature should be part of your travel management system.
2. Budget-Friendly
Beware of unstated costs that might reduce the system’s cost-effectiveness, such as fees for lodging, changes to reservations, or support requests. Choose a solution for arranging business travel with a clear price structure wherever possible.
3. Customised Policies
The policy is the most crucial component of the travel management system for both end users and agents and agencies. Each service may have a different set of rules.
- Pricing is different for regular citizens and elderly citizens
- International and domestic travel policies may differ globally
- Each agency may have a different reservation policy
4. Extensive Travel Inventory
You must ensure your staff can access all the best travel alternatives when making hotel or flight reservations. Nevertheless, some companies that provide employee travel management software only offer a small selection of travel possibilities, which could not be acceptable for the needs of the employees.
However, the most contemporary travel management software collaborates with significant vendors to provide you with a broad selection of inventory, including LCCs (Low-Cost Carriers). This guarantees that your staff has access to cost-effective solutions, which saves money and avoids policy infractions.
5. Audit and Fraud Detection
Your company suffers a large financial loss due to travel expense fraud. But whether it involves duplicate receipts, exaggerated charges, or inflated amounts, manually preventing expense fraud can be challenging.
As a result, you want to pick a software that unifies travel and expense management and includes the Audit & Fraud Detection function. This function automatically checks the expense reports and finds duplicate costs, out-of-policy costs, costs in the incorrect category, and more.
Conclusion
If any travel company includes all the above mentioned characteristics in its software solutions, end users will benefit from superior travel management software. You may bring changes to your conventional method of administering travel services and provide consumers with a user-friendly solution because there is always room for improvement.