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“T&E” sounds like travel booking and expense tracking is already integrated, but that's not actually the case. Some technology tools are poised to be at the forefront of this integration.
— Justin Bachman
There are few tasks as soul-draining and time-consuming as filing expense reports. How much did your hotel room cost in taxes and fees? How many photos of the receipt did you upload? It can waste your employees' time and cause errors in your payment and accounting systems.
Today, all major players in the managed travel industry are moving to simplify their tasks by consolidating their travel and expense (T&E) capabilities into one platform.
Companies that do this include Amex GBT, BCD Travel, Navan, SAP Concur, CWT, and Direct Travel.
The latest example comes from Expensify, a subscription-based software service for tracking business spending.
Last week, the company introduced Expensify Travel, its first foray into direct booking and management of flights, hotels and rental cars with its proprietary platform powered by Spotnana. The platform allows administrators to establish rules around travel spending, including limits on lodging and fare types. Companies can manage their expenses directly with Expensify instead of relying on multiple T&E platforms.
“It's called T&E, travel and expenses, and those are the two things that people really want to put together, more than expenses or invoicing or anything like that,” said Ryan Schaefer, CFO at Expensify. said.
Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett said in a letter to investors that the new travel service is “the most commonly requested feature by midmarket and enterprise customers.” Ta.
A 2023 American Express GBT survey of 1,200 employees found that nearly everyone in travel management (96%) believes travel and expense should be integrated, but Just over a third of respondents say they use a single integrated solution. It has to do with T&E issues.
“If you have X and Y, and they can talk to each other and are deeply integrated, you don’t have to have the best cost and the best travel service,” said Spotnana founder and CEO. said one Sarosh Waghmar. A number of cloud-based travel services.
Better integration is the goal
Navan Expense, which was known as TripActions until February 2023, has been closed to expense services since mid-2020 as it faces virtually zero revenue due to the pandemic, said Navan Expense CEO Michael Sindicic. The company has started expanding its business.
Now integrated with Navan's booking platform, Sindičić says that 95% of individual transactions are done “because you know what's on your calendar, who you're with, what kind of trip you're going on, whether it's on or off.” “It's fully automated and automatically reimbursed.” When it comes to travel, you can apply policies to every transaction in advance. ”
Concur co-founder Steve Singh is also planning expense management as part of the company's acquisition of Direct Travel in April. The new management team aims to integrate expense management company Center, co-founded by Singh's son and CEO Naveen, and expense tracking into the company's services. His new Direct Travel will incorporate digital booking tools from Center as well as conference management companies Troop and Spotnana, eliminating what Singh calls the “broken system” that business travelers currently have to navigate. to correct.
Amex GBT and American Express recently announced a new virtual card for small businesses and tight integration with Amex GBT's Neo1 expense tracking platform.
Just as expense management companies can implement reservations functionality, so can other companies in the business travel eco-sphere, including suppliers.
In November, Australia's Qantas Airways Group became the first airline to add a full online travel booking service, selling hotels, cars and its own flights, also through Spotnana. The service covers 480,000 companies enrolled in the Qantas Business Rewards program and includes employee spending reports and the ability to apply company policies to bookings.
Qantas does not yet sell tickets on oneworld alliance member airlines such as American Airlines or Cathay Pacific or other partner airlines, but that may change.
Spotnana CEO Waghmar said he expects “more announcements later this year” from travel companies looking to sell more personalized content to businesses.
Photo credit: Corporate travelers at London airport.
