3 ways to easily manage your business travel spending

19 Jul 2022 · 8 MIN READ

Last updated: April 2026
Business travel spend management is the process of tracking, controlling, and optimizing all costs associated with employee business trips, including airfare, accommodation, ground transportation, and incidental expenses. For finance professionals responsible for managing these costs, getting control over travel budgets can feel overwhelming - but effective solutions exist.
Are you a finance professional who is responsible for managing business travel spend at your organization? If so, does this situation sound familiar?
You’re trying to get better control over your company’s business travel approval process and budget, but it’s turning out to be more difficult than you thought. Right now, you have expense reports and booking requests coming in from all over the place.
Team members usually book their business trips individually. Each person uses different booking sites in search of the best deals. Since these bookings are often made last minute, you don’t really have much visibility over how much people are spending over the long term.
Business trips often end up going over budget, and you have a feeling the company could be saving a lot of money if you had a better way to manage business travel expenses . You just aren’t quite sure where to begin.
Without a centralized method of managing business travel spending for domestic and international travel, getting a handle on your corporate travel budget can feel impossible. Luckily, there are solutions out there that can help.

5 reasons why business travel spending is so hard to control

If you're a travel manager responsible for business travel spend , you’ll know how challenging it is to keep track of team travel budgets. When employees book on separate platforms, or use a third-party travel agency, it becomes increasingly difficult to control business travel spend.
Understanding why business travel spend is so hard to control, helps you get a better grip on your company’s current travel spend. It also improves your ability as a travel manager to make data-driven budgeting decisions in the future.

So why is business travel spend so hard to control?

Your current booking policies and company practices may send your business travel spend into a spiral, if left unchecked. Here are a few reasons why you might find it difficult to control business travel spend and accompanying solutions.

1. Travel bookings and expense management take place on separate platforms

Traditional travel solutions can’t keep up with the demands of modern travel, addressing one facet while neglecting others. As a result, teams book travel via one travel program or platform, while expense management takes place on another platform.
If your company is booking business travel on different consumer platforms, controlling and managing travel budgets becomes impossible to track. Logging in to separate platforms, and downloading individual invoices, creates hardship when tracking business travel spend.

2. VAT expenses lack real-time data

VAT (Value Added Tax) has long been a thorn in the side of finance teams everywhere. Time constraints surrounding expense report submission, combined with the hassle of physical paperwork, make VAT-associated travel spend difficult to control.
As any experienced travel manager will know, it’s often a multi-step process to claim back VAT on business trips. Your VAT reclaim can take several weeks to process, and may be subject to terms, conditions, and varied rates. As a result, travel managers lack a clear picture of VAT expenses in real-time.

3. Outdated and inefficient expense systems

Is your company using outdated budgeting solutions and expense systems?
Inefficient processes make it difficult to control business travel spend, often resulting in duplicated work for your team, and inaccurate reporting. You also miss out on valuable insights into budget trends and employee spending patterns.

4. Employees lack awareness of company travel policies

If your business travel spend is out of control, employee policy awareness might be a problem. Employees unaware of company travel policies, can lead to trips frequently booked outside of policy without them realizing it.
Travel policy compliance - ensuring employees book within established guidelines for costs, preferred vendors, and approval processes - is essential for controlling spend.

5. Unexpected business travel costs

“Expect the unexpected” is not something you want to hear as a travel manager. Unfortunately, surprise costs and fees associated with business travel spend make it even more difficult to control.
Baggage fees for additional or overweight luggage, airport parking, and car rentals quickly add up when not factored into business travel spend. There’s also the possibility of canceled or delayed flights, on the part of the employee or airline.

3 ways to manage your business travel spending

Here's how you can start easily and effectively managing your company's travel spending:

1. Assess your current booking workflow

Evaluate your existing travel booking process to identify gaps and inefficiencies. The first place to start is by evaluating your company’s current process for booking business travel (including air travel, rail travel, car rental, and accommodation).
If your organization is new to corporate travel, perhaps you don’t have a formal business travel program in place yet. Or maybe you do have some travel booking policies , but you don’t have a process to make sure employees are following them.
Some organizations use a business travel agency (also known as a traditional TMC, or travel management company—a specialized agency that handles corporate travel arrangements, negotiations, and policy enforcement on behalf of businesses) to help with corporate travel management. However, this approach isn't always as cost-effective or flexible as you might like.
Traditional corporate travel agencies often charge recurring monthly fees , regardless of whether services are used that month, and may ask their clients to sign a binding contract with a minimum term of one year. They may also add on extra fees for concierge services, phone bookings, or specific transactions. In general, travel agency costs can be high, and sometimes unpredictable. Travelers also won’t have much autonomy, and may not have access to quality customer support outside office hours.
Fortunately, there’s a better way to book business trips, without the rigidity of a traditional travel agency contract or the chaos of self-booking. Travel management software is a modern solution for the business travel industry. It‘s an easy, convenient way to book and manage business trips, even when your travel volumes are high.

2. Assess the adoption rate of your current booking tools

Measure how consistently employees use your travel tools and identify barriers to adoption. Maybe you’re already using travel management software at your company. However, software is only helpful if it has all the features and functionality you need, and if employees are actually using it. If team members don’t think the software is useful, they will avoid it and go back to self-booking… meaning you won’t be able to track spending on airfare, hotels, and so on.
Take some time to review your software’s adoption rate. If travelers aren’t using the software, schedule meetings or send out employee surveys, asking respondents what they think. There’s a chance your software may be missing some important booking features , leading to a poor user experience. Or perhaps the software simply doesn’t have enough inventory, meaning your travelers can’t find the accommodation and transport options they want.
If your current software isn't up to scratch, consider switching to another solution. Preferably, you'll want to choose a platform with extensive inventory and features like automated travel policies and approval workflows, so travelers can easily see if their booking falls within policy, and request additional approvals if needed. Along with helpful integrations and a user-friendly mobile app, booking is made easy—so travelers will actually want to use the system.

3. Look for a solution that offers centralized travel booking and real-time automated reporting

Implement travel management software with integrated expense tracking and reporting dashboards. Travel management software should be easy to use for business travelers themselves... but it should also have all the features the finance team needs. Two crucial features for finance teams are real-time reporting and integration with an expense management solution .
Remember those scattered emails and expense reports? Consider those as good as gone. Instead, with travel management software like Perk, you’ll have access to an easy-to-use dashboard , where you can break down data by person, transport type, booking type, cancellations, recoverable VAT, and more.
You can use these reports to create visuals, easily communicate your corporate travel spend, and find new ways to reduce travel costs while maintaining trip quality. You can also use them to track and offset carbon dioxide emissions, so you can measure, report, and reduce your company’s carbon footprint —perfect for your sustainability initiatives.
By integrating with an expense management solution, you can take things even further. Use technology to simplify the reporting process. Travelers can easily manage their expenses and sync this data directly to your travel platform, giving you full visibility over spending patterns.
Automating expense reports will save you time and save your company money, while also giving you a real-time overview of cash flow. Did you know that the average expense report takes 20 minutes to complete and $58 to process, while correcting a flawed report takes an additional 18 minutes and $52 to process, according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA)? All those reports can really add up, draining your team’s time and the company’s budget.
By automating the expense management process, you can eliminate paperwork which is tiresome, difficult to organize, and wasteful. Instead, you’ll have a streamlined digital system which is simpler and less prone to error, giving you visibility over travel trends, traveler spending patterns, possible policy violations, and new opportunities for cost savings.
Factor
Traditional travel agency (TMC)
Self-booking
Travel management software
Cost visibility
Limited; fees can be unpredictable
Poor; scattered across platforms
High; centralized dashboard
Flexibility
Low; often requires contracts
High; but lacks controls
High; with policy guardrails
Policy compliance
Managed by agency
Difficult to enforce
Automated enforcement
Reporting capabilities
Manual; delayed
None; requires manual compilation
Real-time; automated
Traveler autonomy
Low
High
Balanced
Key takeaways
  • Centralize booking through travel management software to gain visibility and control over all travel expenses in one platform.
  • Use real-time reporting dashboards to monitor spending patterns, identify policy violations, and find cost-saving opportunities.
  • Integrate expense management with your travel platform for automated reconciliation and reduced manual processing time.
  • Establish clear travel policies within your booking tool to ensure compliance and reduce out-of-policy bookings.
  • Address the root causes of uncontrolled spend—fragmented platforms, lack of real-time data, and low policy awareness—before implementing solutions.

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