The Complete Guide to Business Travel Reporting
The complete guide to business travel reporting
Are you able to easily track trends in your company’s travel expenses? Is your expense data collected all in one place, or is it spread out across a network of spreadsheets, emails, and messages?
Travel reporting helps companies keep track of their travel expenses and gain valuable insights into spending patterns. But there are many different ways to approach reporting. Some companies handle it manually, while others use a travel management company or software platform to help.
While business travel reporting is essential, it’s not always straightforward. There are budgets to track, last-minute changes to accommodate, and travel policies to comply with. And today’s employees are on the move more than ever before — in fact, 58% of travel managers predict their travel budgets will increase in 2025.
But reporting doesn’t have to be complicated. Automated business travel reporting has become the go-to solution for busy finance managers.
In this guide, we’ll run through everything you need to know about business travel reporting, from common challenges faced when onboarding to a new tool to best practices for expense management. Along the way, we’ll explain how choosing the right software can ensure your business trips continue to be a success.
Why is effective business travel reporting so important?
Business travel reporting is essential to maintaining your company’s financial health. With access to comprehensive data, you’ll be able to identify trends in spending patterns and traveler behavior. This enables your finance team to understand the efficiency of your company’s business travel program.
Here are the top advantages of effective reporting for your business:
Improved budget management
Finance teams need expense reports to understand where budget is allocated and to make sure expenses align with corporate objectives. This way, you can make sure your team knows exactly where money is being spent, and where overspending may be happening.
Spotting potential cost savings opportunities
Business travel reporting allows finance managers to identify potential chances for cost savings. This might involve evaluating travel options, negotiating with suppliers, or optimizing expense management.
Travel policy compliance
Perhaps your company has created a travel policy to try and get a handle on spending—but in order for it to be effective, people have to follow it. Expense reports from your travel management software can help you track whether team members are overspending on flights and hotels that are out of policy. This system will also allow you to spot reasons why travelers might be booking out of policy—for example, frequent last-minute bookings for sales meetings. Your team can then work on tweaking your policies to optimize for efficiency.
Keeping track of expenses
Overspending can be a silent leech on company finances, so expense tracking is essential. Having all your employee travel data in one place is a huge advantage, allowing finance managers to ensure compliance and closely monitor travel spend in real time.
Common challenges companies face with business travel reporting
Unmanaged business travel
Here are some drawbacks to unmanaged business travel:
Fragmented data: If employees are booking on different platforms, data becomes fragmented and difficult to track. This can be a nightmare for finance teams trying to stay on top of all their receipts. Effective reporting hinges on gathering scattered data to form an accurate “bigger picture.”
Relying on manual processes: This increases the risk of human error and consumes precious employee time, which could be better spent on other tasks. Mistakes can be costly, and many cannot be reversed.
Missing data: Lost receipts, incomplete information, and inconsistent reporting practices can complicate business travel expense reporting.
Not getting the best deals or having control on spend: Booking through third-party platforms means the company doesn’t get access to corporate rates, nor do they rack up any travel points for using certain membership programs at scale. Leaving employees to book on their own also means your company has less control over spend and policy compliance.
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Managed business travel
Managed business travel means a company takes care of travel for their employees. They might use a traditional travel agency or an online travel management software like Perk. With travel software, employees are empowered to book their own trips through a single platform, resulting in a much more controlled process as companies can integrate their travel policies directly into the platform. This gives employees independence, while companies get the control they need.
Here are some common challenges with managed business travel:
Data overload: Managed business travel often involves collecting a vast amount of data. While this data is very helpful for reporting, it also means companies can struggle to determine which KPIs are most important to their business.
Knowledge sharing: Implementing a new tool or system for business travel reporting is only effective if employees adopt and understand it. Effective training and knowledge-sharing are the pillars of a successful transition.
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3 tips to make business travel reporting easier for finance teams
Here are our top tips and helpful advice from trusted professionals like you on how to best manage employee travel and reporting:
1. Set clear travel policies and make employees aware of them
To keep on top of expenses, your organization should create easy to understand, accessible travel policies. When employees are conscious of what can be expensed and booked, they’ll be able to make cost-efficient travel decisions that suit your company’s needs. Your organization should have policies in place for all travel circumstances—from reimbursement guidelines, to tips for choosing eco-friendly options.
Sebastian Ibarra, People Operations Manager at Kodify Media Group, shared his experience in policy setting.
“I’d recommend starting with a clear and concise travel expense policy that could include different “zones” with expense limits. An easy to follow process of uploading expenses and paying them out in a timely manner, if it’s a bigger company maybe investing in an expense management tool like Expensify to get accurate reporting and automatic reimbursement.Other than that, be sure when building a policy that it’s in line with company culture and creating the desired behaviors!”
2. Use technology to automate the process
Automated travel management tools are a game-changer in business travel reporting: they significantly speed up the process and minimize inaccuracies and delays. By consolidating all travel data in one place using a tool like Perk, your company can simplify travel management and significantly improve the quality of your expense data.
Using one single platform means no information gets lost, and it’s easy to see how individual employees are sticking to their travel budgets with real-time updates and automated expense dashboards.
Plus, the third-party integrations offered by Perk mean you can easily send this data to popular expense management solutions like Pleo, Divvy Yokoy, and Expensify.
We spoke to Anja Sejfic, HR Business Partner at Rinkel, to understand how she uses technology to report on business travel.
“We’ve recently started using Pleo with Perk and it has made reporting/reimbursing travel costs so much easier! We used to have to e-mail our receipts to the accounting department (very old-school, time-consuming and prone to delay), but now it’s all done in the app. You just snap a photo of our receipt, upload it to the app, your manager approves and you can be reimbursed straight away.This makes our reporting process a dream, and saves hours of time.”
3. Train employees and gather feedback
To make sure the software is working as expected, be sure to regularly consult travelers for feedback. Employees should be asked for their opinions on what works and what doesn't, and management should be proactive about addressing their concerns. This will help create a great user experience and encourage employees to use the software.
We spoke to Cécile POMPEÏ, an HR advisor for social impact organizations and formerly Chief People Officer at Sistema Biobolsa, who shared her viewpoint on how effective training and compliance starts with culture.
“I've read the book No Rules Rule, and I try to go with this principle I learned there: it's more important to build a great culture and trust, having an environment in which people know what to do and don't do than endless policies.Some employees will sometimes take a chance and try to overspend on a trip or do something they shouldn't do. If you try to always go against this, you'll end up building longer and longer policies that no one reads anyway, constantly adding to all the things people can't do.So, it's simpler to write a short, clear policy with a very efficient process, and then train on culture and build trust for the company. I'm a Chief People Officer, I have four country HR heads reporting to me, and that's the advice I give them when they building their policies.”
Stay on top of your company’s business travel expenses
For finance managers, it’s crucial to stay on top of company expenses in areas such as business travel. With Perk, an industry leader in business travel, employees can access the airlines and hotels they’re used to, keeping all their expense data collected in one convenient location.
The all-in-one Perk booking platform allows employees to make bookings based on their preferences, while your company can add in any necessary travel policies or restrictions in a few clicks.
With the additional option of third-party integrations, you can link up your existing travel tech stack to ensure a seamless transition. Finance teams can enjoy a full overview of company travel spend, while managers can streamline travel booking, approvals, and duty of care tasks.
With its world-class inventory, Perk users enjoy significant cost-saving opportunities. Simplify your expense management processes, free up your time, and get a handle on your company’s business travel spending all in one place by signing up for a free demo.
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