Corporate travel expenses can stack up and easily exceed a pre-approved budget. In fact, the average US business trip costs $1,293! Businesses need to keep track of their travel expenditure—and there’s specialised software to help with that
With the right tools and software, business travel becomes a lot easier to book, manage and update. Business travel management software can also help you save money and avoid overspending, which is essential for small businesses with limited budgets.
What is travel and expense management software?
Travel and expense management software can help companies manage and track business travel spending. Whether it’s for booking travel, managing travellers or creating expense reports, T&E management software is a must for businesses sending employees on corporate business trips.
Businesses of all kinds can benefit from corporate travel and expense management software as it can:
Give you a comprehensive overview of your corporate travel spending
Help you book travel that’s aligned with your corporate travel policy
To simplify corporate travel, consider expense software applications. Here are our top picks for 2025.
The best travel and expense management solutions
Let’s take a look at the top six travel expense management solutions available today.
1. Perk
Perk is a business travel management platform that helps customers easily book and manage corporate travel. The solution integrates with other tools, including many popular expense management solutions like Rydoo and Circula. This ensures you’ve got everything you need on one easy-to-use platform.
Perk’s main benefits include:
Access to multiple user profiles for booking travel
Centralised invoicing, so you can say goodbye to multiple invoices and even opt to let Perk handle invoice collection for you
Company policy compliance when offering booking options
Third-party integrations with popular tools.
Excellent 24/7 customer support with a target 1-minute response time
Advanced reporting and insights for a comprehensive overview of spending
Quick VAT recovery solutions—find out how much you could be saving with Perk’s VAT recovery calculator
Perk also offers a flexible travel solution—FlexiTravel—to help businesses limit unnecessary travel spending. With FlexiTravel, you can claim 80% of your money back when cancelling travel bookings up to two hours in advance.
You can also keep an eye on your sustainability goals with Green Trip—Perk’s carbon offsetting solution. Businesses can book travel with the environment in mind, and support green initiatives hand-picked by the Perk sustainability team.
Perk’s comprehensive travel management solution is easy-to-use, and the expense management integrations enable you to create one simple workflow for all your corporate travel needs.
G2 rating: 4.6 / 5, based on 1,533 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.7 / 5, based on 408 ratings (as of September 2024)
Try Perk today to discover high-quality, professional services first-hand, and start simplifying your corporate travel process.
Don't overspend on business travel. Save time and money today.
2. Spendesk
Spendesk is a spend management solution for finance teams. It provides 100% visibility over every payment with a real-time dashboard.
With Spendesk, finance teams can define budgets and spending limits, and managers can approve purchases automatically. The platform automates tasks like invoice payment, manual data entry and employee reimbursements.
Spendesk’s benefits include:
Unlimited virtual cards for frictionless subscription management and online payments
Built-in budgets and spending rules to eliminate rogue spending
Automatic receipt capture with OCR technology
Smoother month-end closing thanks to automated bookkeeping and streamlined processes
Faster, smarter spending decisions
Spendesk and Perk integrate seamlessly for enhanced travel spend management.
Users can enjoy Perk's travel management they know and love with Spendesk's best-in-class spend management solution. These connected spend and travel management tools relieve pressure on both the travelling employee and the finance team.
Here’s how users rate Spendesk on G2 and Capterra:
G2 rating: 4.7 / 5, based on 402 reviews (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.8 / 5, based on 219 ratings (as of September 2024)
3. BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense (formerly Divvy) is a free spend management solution that gives businesses access to the credit they need and the software to manage it. The software is provided for free because BILL Spend & Expense takes a cut of the merchant’s fee whenever you spend using their cards.
Let’s take a look at BILL Spend & Expense’s top features:
Unlimited, customisable virtual cards for your business expenses
In-depth reporting and insights to give you complete control over business expenses
Travel reimbursement software to measure expense claims and mileage reimbursements against specific budgets for added spend visibility
Rewards programme based on your payoff schedule, with rewards on restaurants, hotels, subscriptions and more
Here’s how BILL Spend & Expense performs when it comes to ratings:
G2 rating: 4.5 / 5, based on 1,435 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.7 / 5, based on 414 ratings (as of September 2024)
BILL Spend & Expense also integrates with Perk to speed up the travel expense management process. The integration gives SMBs in the US a centralised portal to book, manage and report on travel.
It gives business travellers and managers complete financial control to limit overspending and get real-time visibility into travel expenses.
4. Ramp
Ramp is an expense management and finance automation solution that helps businesses cut wasteful spend and simplify payments and reimbursements. Ramp also provides physical and virtual corporate cards, with credit limits for on-the-go spending in line with your company policy.
Ramp’s top features include:
Accounting automation to eliminate tedious, time-consuming accounting tasks (when integrated with an accounting solution)
Easy to set up spending approval and prepaid cards with custom budgets
AI-powered receipt matching that learns from previous receipt submissions
Cards with your company branding for that extra personalised touch
Let’s take a look at Ramp’s review platform ratings:
G2 rating: 4.8 / 5, based on 2,013 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.9 / 5, based on 186 ratings (as of September 2024)
Ramp is another tool with powerful integrations, including one with Perk. Ramp and Perk work together to provide business travellers with all-in-one travel and expense management—including corporate cards and real-time travel expense updates.
5. Fyle
Fyle is an expense management software that enables businesses and employees to better manage the expense and reimbursement process. Along with offering accounting and employee data integrations.
Fyle also integrates with Perk for seamless travel expense reporting. It gives finance teams complete control and visibility over travel and expense (T&E) processes.
Fyle’s main benefits include:
Easily manage receipts and business travel details
Save or submit digital expense reports through a centralised dashboard
Ensure travel compliance with set business travel expense reimbursement policies
Access credit card management software, which is useful for monitoring and processing company credit cards
Fyle can’t help with organising corporate travel, but its integration with Perk gives travel managers one place to manage all their business travel processes.
Any trips booked with Perk will be created as expenses within Fyle, with invoices added to the booking as attachments. The two solutions work side by side to give you a complete overview of your travel spending.
G2 rating: 4.6 / 5, based on 1,411 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.5 / 5, based on 146 ratings (as of September 2024)
Fyle provides a simple platform that, when integrated with your favourite solutions, offers a seamless travel and expense management process.
With Fyle’s integration with Perk, businesses can manage travel and expenses in a truly connected manner. Whenever an invoice is created, a corresponding expense will automatically be added to Fyle and categorised by type.
6. SAP Concur
SAP Concur is an all-in-one travel and expense management software. It helps automate your work processes for a simple travel management experience. Whether your travellers are spending on hotels, airline tickets or cabs—it’s all covered.
SAP Concur’s main benefits include:
Reduce overall costs with control over your travel and expense management
Improve your compliance and help mitigate risks
Simple implementations with cloud solutions
A scalability solution for growing businesses
Mobile optimised for those looking for mobile app capabilities
SAP Concur—like Perk—offers a complete solution for managing business travel and expenditure. However, Perk has a lot more to offer for smaller businesses when it comes to booking corporate travel:
A larger inventory means Perk offers deals from a wider variety of travel providers, including deals on flights, accommodation and car hire
SAP Concur’s pricing can be difficult to estimate, and many features are optional additions. With Perk, you pay when you travel—no unexpected fees or add-ons
Perk’s platform is easy to implement and use, whereas SAP Concur users often report the tool being “clunky and not easy to use”.
Perk helps businesses save money on travel and seamlessly manage expenses with no hassle. SAP Concur offers similar solutions, just without the intuitive interface and expert support team.
Let’s take a look at how SAP Concur stacks up when looking at reviews:
G2 rating: 4 / 5, based on 6,109 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.3 / 5 stars, based on 2,074 reviews (as of September 2024)
Click below to compare both platforms’ features and benefits
Why choose Perk over SAP Concur?7. Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense is considered one of the top expense management platforms. It offers expense management and corporate travel solutions to businesses of all sizes. It's a great solution for growing businesses that need simple, scalable solutions for expense management.
According to Zoho Expense, its main benefits include:
Streamlined corporate travel with automated expense reporting for each trip
Notifications to alert team members of updates and changes
Real-time spend visibility for an up-to-date overview of any expense data
Analytics that can highlight changes required for better travel and expense management
While Zoho Expense offers a comprehensive suite of features, there are areas that customers aren’t quite satisfied with—such as customer service and inventory capabilities. Perk solves these main points by offering:
High-quality 24/7 customer support with a target response time of 1 minute
A leading inventory that offers Perk’s negotiated rates
Key features like carbon offsetting and VAT recovery
An easy-to-use interface and workflow
Zoho Expense’s main offering is expense management, meaning they fall behind when it comes to corporate travel. Perk provides a seamless approach to both corporate travel and expense management, with an innovative platform and intuitive integrations.
Plus, users rate Perk higher than Zoho in all key areas—such as ease of use, quality of support, and product direction.
G2 rating: 4.5 / 5, based on 1,216 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.6 / 5, based on 1,021 ratings (as of September 2024)
8. Emburse Certify
Emburse Certify is an expense management software that offers the option to book travel from its in-platform booking tool, or by integrating with another travel management system.
With Emburse Certify, you can deliver expense reports, organise accounts payable, and quickly manage invoices all with one platform.
According to Emburse Certify, its main benefits include:
Workflows for efficient, reliable, and data-rich employee expense management
Policy compliance with built-in policy controls
Automate the accounts payable process and gain insights into business spend
Let’s also take a look at how Emburse Certify performs on top software review sites:
G2 rating: 4.5 / 5, based on 2,132 ratings (as of September 2024)
Capterra rating: 4.7 / 5, based on 1,279 ratings (as of September 2024)
Emburse Certify offers a powerful expense management solution for businesses big and small. When paired with a TMC like Perk, it can help you ensure that all travel and expenses are under control. Perk helps you manage all things corporate travel, and Emburse Certify streamlines the expense management process—a match made in heaven.
There you have it! The eight most popular and capable expense management solutions in today’s market.
But how do you know when to sign up for any of these expense management software? Are these for all businesses, no matter the point in their growth journey?
When is the right time to find a travel and expense management solution?
If your company is currently spending too much time and money on business travel, chances are your business could benefit from a travel and expense management solution.
Managing business travel manually can be an expensive hassle, but travel and expense management solutions can help. Use them to:
Identify where you could be saving on your travel budget
Find better deals on travel and accommodation with negotiated rates
Lower your overall travel spending
Make life easier for your corporate travel manager(s)
Enable employees to easily self-book travel within your organisation’s company policy
If you meet the qualifying criteria, jot down what business needs your new tool stack addition should meet.
What should you look out for in T&E software? 6 Key features
Travel management software enables companies to manage all things business travel. Whether it’s travel booking, traveller tracking, flight changes, or any other corporate travel need, travel management company (TMC) solutions can help simplify your corporate travel.
Consider the following factors, and evaluate how important they are for your travellers’ needs:
1. A user-friendly travel management platform
You need to ensure all employees can use your T&E software platform, from your IT intern to your CEO.
Consider the dashboards that users see when using the software. Are they confusing and outdated, or intuitive and modern?
Look for expense software with a simple approach to onboarding that doesn’t require in-depth knowledge to manage business travel.
When possible, request a demo before committing to a purchase.
2. Multiple user profiles
The ability to create multiple user profiles is essential for managing your corporate travel programme. Different employees have different roles, and not all of them require the same access level to your travel management software. User profiles ensure your team has access only to what they need, thus increasing data security and control.
3. Travel policy integration and compliance
Your organisation likely already has a company travel and expense policy. If it doesn't, you can use our sample company travel policy to create your own.
Your travel policy outlines the rules relating to travel spending and ensures your employees stay within your travel budget.
The software you choose should integrate with your travel policy. That way, you can keep track of travel expenditures and ensure your travellers remain within budget.
4. A seamless reimbursement process
Expense tracking and receipt scanning capabilities will help you manage expenses and reimbursements efficiently. Receipt scanning, for example, ensures all employees are providing accurate expenses, and that you have evidence of it for VAT and tax purposes.
5. Automated approval workflows and reporting
Whether it's getting approval on proposed trips or automating the invoicing process, you need a tool that streamlines your travel booking and reporting. This will save your team members substantial time.
Need an easier way to manage expenses for business travel?
Perk unites travel and expenses in one simple-to-use interface .6. Integrations with existing tools
Integrations are essential for a seamless travel management process. When choosing software, look out for integrations with:
Accounting software
Travel management software
Time-tracking tools
Calendar software
Now that you know what makes a great expense management solution, it’s time to see one in action.
Travel and expense management software for your business
Travel and expense management solutions help companies organise and manage corporate travel and its associated expenses.
With the right expense management process in place, businesses can cut costs and reduce hassle.
A comprehensive travel and expense management solution helps both travel managers and finance managers create more cost-effective travel programmes. Get in touch today to find out how Perk can simplify your corporate travel and provide key insights to continuously optimise your travel processes.