Integrated Data Shows Where Travel Dollars Are Really Going

Picture the problem: Booking data in one department showed that 500 hotel room nights were “lost” because they were booked by travelers going outside of the company’s travel policy and procedures. There was nothing to even indicate where these travelers stayed.

Memos flew, managers and supervisors were called in, travelers threatened. And yet the problem persisted.

Expense report data
That is, until the company was advised to expand data collection and analysis. Instead of looking just at booking data, travel managers integrated expense data to find out what travelers are spending and where they are spending it.

“Not everybody goes through the corporate booking tool or uses the corporate card, but they all want to get reimbursed,” said Brian Tarble, an implementation consultant with expense management company TRX.

“If you only use one piece of data, the booking tool, you get limited visibility and limited impact. Tying in expense data gives you a better picture of what is actually going on in your department.”

Most convenient choice
As it turned out, the 500 missing room nights were all going to a single hotel, said Tarble, who related this scenario during a session at the recent Global Business Travel Association convention in Boston. The hotel, which was not on the company’s preferred vendor list, was being selected for its convenience to employees doing business with a particular client.

The solution? The company cut a deal with the property and added it to the preferred list.

The company was happy because the negotiated rate was lower than what employees were paying on their own.

The travel department was happy because they got a significant boost in program compliance and public recognition for having made a positive contribution.

And travelers were happy because they got to use what was obviously the most appropriate hotel without having to work outside the travel program.

Simple changes, big results
“The bottom line managers of the different business units are really what drive travel management,” Tarble explained. “They are the people with the most at stake. You can help them see ways to save gobs of money with some really simple changes. You just have to use more than the most obvious piece of data, bookings, and dive in to see what people are actually doing.”

Too many companies still rely on booking data as their sole information source, according to Tarble. Integrating out-of-program spending, spending outside the air-hotel-car triad, corporate card data, personal card data, meetings and event data and supplier-direct data gives a much more granular picture of traveler behavior and spending.

Once expense data becomes part of the mix, travel managers can compare booking to sending. Are travelers actually using the tickets and rooms they booked through approved channels? Or maybe they are cancelling off the system and rebooking another vendor via another channel.

Card data in the mix
Encouraging, even requiring, the use of a corporate credit card can help speed collection of expense data. But even the most willing travelers can’t use the corporate account for about 20% travel spending for one reason or another. That’s why it is important to integrate personal card data.

It is easy enough to bring personal card data into the mix, said TRX product manager Jeremy Waldron. Almost every card offers electronic statements. All travelers have to do is forward that electronic statement to the travel department with business expenses identified. The travel department incorporates business spending and discards personal items to maintain employee privacy. Integration of vendor-supplied data can be just as straightforward.

Multiple sources a necessity
Integrating data from multiple sources isn’t an option, Tarble added. It is a necessity. Pretrip approval alone can’t control traveler behavior or spending.

“After that pretrip approval point in a lot of organizations, oversight is done,” he explained. “Nobody is checking on the back end to see what was really done and employees know it. Reconciling expense data to booking data is a tool that can drive tremendous changes in traveler behavior and spending.”

Faster reimbursement
The trick is introducing expense reconciliation without alienating travelers. Waldron found a practical approach in revamping a paper-based reimbursement used by the state of West Virginia.

The state didn’t give employees a choice about using the new system. But instead of simply mandating use, they emphasized a powerful incentive: faster reimbursement.

“Travelers were out of control because they knew they could be,” Waldron said. “It was a paper process that had no real controls in place. We automated policy using multiple streams of digital data and automatic traveler profiles that allowed real time policy enforcement.”

The reimbursement system was also automated, enabling travelers to be reimbursed within a week.

“Employees were so much happier to see reimbursement faster and more accurately that they embraced all the changes, including policy enforcement,” Waldron said.  

The state of West Virginia benefitted as well, he said. “They saved money with better travel program management, they were able to negotiate better vendor contracts because they had more complete data, and they got better policy compliance.

“And employee satisfaction shot up. All it took was integrating multiple sources of data and automating the process.”