Business travel organization can be a huge task, involving complicated procedures and constant monitoring. Innovative software solutions that help manage and automate everything from booking flights and hotels to processing expenses have become an invaluable resource for today’s companies.

In our globalized world, business travel is often a necessity, even for small-scale companies where employees mainly work remotely. Business travel management apps offer a vast array of features that iron out the process and prevent any headaches.

Whether you’re interested in cutting costs, or increasing efficiency, productivity, and policy compliance, or simply keeping employees happy, the benefit of business travel management apps is huge. They can also provide key insights into travel cost patterns, enabling more efficient spending in the future.

What is corporate travel management software?

Corporate travel management software refers to the technology used to plan, book, and manage every aspect of business travel – from flights and taxis to accommodations and expenses. Taking care of everything before and after a business trip, business travel management tools can also automate company travel policies and invoices.

An efficient business travel system promises to streamline the process, ensuring corporate travel goes smoothly and works within a company’s budget and policies.

In the past, businesses had to manage the process manually – from ensuring all employees were up-to-date on the company’s travel policy and allowing them to use any website to book stages of their trip, to processing expense receipts with messy internal systems. Or they might have hired an external corporate travel agency to deal with everything – with expensive commission and less oversight of day-to-day efficiency.

These days, developments in travel booking software allow companies to make sure employees book business travel themselves while staying within budget and travel policies. These corporate travel apps often include company payment details, so collecting receipts and reimbursing employees for expenses is no longer necessary.

Advantages of using business travel management tools

The development of business travel management tools has enhanced the ease and efficiency of planning and carrying out corporate travel.

Smart business travel software can help with:

  • Planning travel – When you’re in the planning stages of a work trip, business travel management tools make it easy to keep track of travel arrangements. By consolidating confirmation emails, tickets, and bookings in an itinerary stored in a single app, this technology makes it possible to organize and access information while on the move.
  • Booking travel – When you reach the booking phase of a business trip, travel management software lets you compare options for flights, hotels, car rentals, and more in one tool – and book it all in line with company policy.
  • Approving travel – From a manager or company perspective, technology that automates the approval process for business travel is incredibly helpful. Automated workflows direct employee travel requests through various channels to be reviewed and approved or denied, eliminating the risk of human error.
  • Ensuring business travel policy compliance – Company business travel policies can be complex and confusing for employees to follow. Corporate travel software can establish and maintain clear guidelines that are easier for employees to understand and for employers to enforce.
  • Providing business travel support – Modern technology makes it much easier for companies to offer support to employees before, during, and after a business trip. With AI chatbots and automated systems, it’s possible to provide 24/7 assistance – whether to help business travelers find the best deals, advice for travel-related emergencies and disruptions, or simply to ensure a smooth journey.
  • Expense management and reimbursement – Business travel management apps that deal specifically with expenses allow companies to integrate business travel processes with accounting and HR systems. This streamlines the financial side of travel to save time.
  • Collecting data insights – By utilizing corporate travel management software to collect and analyze data, companies can gain insight on how to streamline future business travel plans. From tracking expenses to flight costs, this technology can reveal patterns that save time and money later on.

Which travel management tools do businesses need?

1. Booking tools

Most employees prefer to book their own business travel, but can find it hard to navigate company policy and be sure they’re following procedures and policies. Booking tools or apps provide access to clear instructions, a range of booking options, and records of past trips.

2. Expense management tools

Keeping and manually submitting business trip receipts for reimbursement is often a frustrating aspect of corporate travel for both travelers and finance teams. From invoice scanning to generating and filing expense reports, expense management tools help companies automate the process and integrate business travel processes with accounting and HR systems.

3. Itinerary planning tools

Itinerary management tools centralize the many elements of business travel planning. By organizing email confirmations and tickets in a master calendar or itinerary, these apps and tools make business travel plans easy to view and manage.

Top travel management tools

1. Booking.com for Business

Booking.com for Business is a free business travel platform designed to help you take care of business travel from start to finish. Easy-to-use, it makes sure that your business saves money on corporate travel, that plenty of options can be booked in a couple of clicks, and that the whole process runs smoothly. Business travelers also enjoy exclusive business rates, earn loyalty points, and benefit from complimentary 24/7 support from the leading travel management company, CWT.

2. Travelperk

Travelperk is a handy app that gathers all aspects of a business trip that you need to book in one place – whether that includes flights and trains, or hotels and meals. With a handy mobile app that compares price and convenience across sites from across the internet, it makes finding great options within a fixed company budget easier. And it speeds up the research, planning, and booking stages of the process, saving time and money, which proves it an invaluable resource for staff tasked with arranging corporate travel.

3. SAP Concur Travel

SAP Concur Travel is one of the most well-known corporate travel apps where you can book flights, hotels, and car rentals, while managing expenses and enforcing policy. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), SAP can also capture receipts and integrate them with accounting systems.

4. Egencia

Egencia is an ingenious global B2B tech platform for travel management. With 24/7 customer support available, users can book travel and accommodations to manage their entire trip. At the same time, companies can access data insight features and travel policy adherence all on one convenient and reliable platform.

5. CWT

In addition to providing a wide range of booking options, CWT offers features for managing meetings and events. With round-the-clock traveler support, risk management, and travel policy adherence, it’s a comprehensive app for all business travel needs – whether from the employer or employee perspective.

6. Navan

An intuitive and easy-to-use app designed to simplify corporate travel processes, Navan offers business travel and expense solutions. Its features offer flexibility and time-saving potential for business travel programs – from automatically synchronizing bespoke expense systems and approval workflows, to 24/7 customer service and loyalty points for cost-effective trips. It’s hardly surprising that this integrated platform is frequently ranked as one of the top travel management software services.

Best travel expense management tools:

7. Spendesk

Focused on spend management, Spendesk is a software that revolutionizes the expense process and business travel finance management in general. Users enjoy features like spending reports and real-time insights into corporate travel costs, budget advice and info, accounting automation, and a credit card offering.

8. Happay

Happay provides business travelers and companies with a straightforward interface that makes all your expense management processes smoother. Its robust features allow users to upload expenses for quick reimbursements, to utilize prepaid company cards to track all payments, and to enforce spending limits. It also boasts an analytics dashboard, accounts system integration, compliance enforcement, and lots of other enticing features.

9. Zoho Expense

A valuable software management tool, Zoho is a web and mobile app that categorizes all expenses neatly and automates processes at every stage of business travel. Thanks to a free trial option, companies can test out various customizable features, from expense report submission and insights into business travel efficiency to fraud detection. And, since Zoho can be integrated with existing workflows, it promises minimal overhaul and the ability to enhance business travel efficiency with immediate effect.

10. Yokoy

Yokoy is an AI-powered expense management platform that streamlines corporate travel processes by automating and consolidating data in detailed reports. Its main appeal lies in its expense management software, its processing of invoices, and its smart corporate cards. Spending policies can be tailored to companies’ needs, while the app also crawls and detects policy breaches throughout the expense process. Other highlights include smooth approval workflows and expense analyses that ensure the cost efficiency of a company’s business travel is constantly optimized.

11. Fyle

Fyle offers users automated integration of accounting software with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express credit cards. It also helps with reimbursing employees and expense reporting. Saving hours of manual work, it’s an app that’s proven popular thanks to its user-friendly interface and the convenience of managing expenses on the move.

How to choose the best business travel system

The best business travel system will depend on the size and needs of your company. If you're a big corporation with thousands of traveling employees and strong policies, you might go for a platform with more complex policy support and account management. If you’re a small or mid-sized company, you may prefer a free, self-service tool like Booking.com for Business to minimize costs and maximize results.

If you want to optimize and facilitate the process for business trips, an app or platform like Booking.com for Business may be the most effective, allowing users to book every stage of their trips and store confirmations and tickets all in one place.

With the array of travel management solutions available today, you’ll be able to find business travel software tailored to your specific needs. They enable businesses to achieve goals and save money, help travel admins efficiently manage and book trips for employees, and give travelers a variety of options to choose from. From offering 24/7 customer support to real-time business travel data, today’s travel management apps and tools promise to streamline and enhance the entire corporate travel experience perfectly for you.

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