Corporate travel policy best practices
Corporate travel management in Singapore
Singapore has always been a significant travel destination be it for tourism or business. But whether it is business travel for companies inside Singapore or foreign business folks traveling to the country, corporate travel can be daunting if no policies outline all the rules and processes associated with business travel and the related expenses.
An organization that has employees who have to travel to multiple destinations regularly for business must create and follow corporate travel policy best practices. These best practices will help you keep business expenses in check and also allow you to ensure transparency with your employees regarding T&E expenses.
What is corporate travel policy?
A corporate travel policy is basically a document or system that outlines the type of expenses that an employee can get reimbursed. This usually includes transportation, hotel & lodging, business lunches/dinners, and other similar costs.
This policy helps employees know how much they can spend during travel on behalf of the business for their operations and also know exactly what expenses they can make.
Corporate travel policy best practices
1. Clear and concise
Keep the travel policy clear and concise. Ensure that important details can be easily found and understood by the employees without any complex language.
2. Define the objective of the policy
A company must clearly define the business objectives of the corporate travel policy you wish to accomplish. Who these rules and regulations within the travel policy are directed must be clearly mentioned.
How you plan to achieve these goals with the travel expense policy must also be outlined.
3. Employee involvement
While the final creation and decision-making of what the policy entails should be with the senior management, you should involve your employees when creating the travel policy.
This will help get new ideas and perspectives to draft a well-rounded and satisfactory travel expense policy that is helpful for all the stakeholders involved.
4. Updated Information
Corporate travel policy best practices also involves keeping the policy up to date. No rule is set in stone. Requirements and business needs may change constantly and the policies must adapt to these changes.
This will help everyone know the latest policy regulations and not let outdated documents cause unnecessary problems.
5. Flexibility
Sometimes, you may have to be flexible with the corporate travel policy. There may be certain rules regarding transport or lodging that a few employees may not be comfortable with.
In such cases, you must consider individual circumstances and travelers’ preferences. Make sure to leave notes that inform employees that a few rules may be flexible to change depending on the situation at hand.
6. Communication guidelines
Establish clear communication guidelines. How should an employee get in touch with the company in case of any emergencies?
Outlining different scenarios that employees may face while traveling and what they should do in that situation will greatly help an employee be confident and worry-free about their travel arrangements.
7. Expense tracking and management
Make use of an expense management system to ensure that employees are easily compensated for their business travel expenses and that the company has visibility and control over the expenses at all times.
8. Centralized travel booking
Encourage everyone to book from one place such as the same vendor or booking platform. You can do this by incentivizing employees in some way or mandating this process.
This helps keep all business travel expenses in one place rather than it being scattered across.
9. Compliance
Encourage adherence by training and providing regular guidance to everyone so that they adhere to the corporate travel policies that have been set.
How can Volopay help you with corporate travel management?
Volopay is a complete expense management suite that is one of the best T&E management solutions in the market. Its wide range of features including corporate cards for employees or the easy-to-use reimbursement module gives users the option of how they want to manage their T&E budget. Here are some actionable ways that Volopay helps businesses manage business travel expenses:
Reimbursements
Companies that use Volopay can easily let employees submit expense claims on the Volopay platform through a mobile app or the web portal. Employees can add important information regarding the expense such as the amount, merchant, currency, and additional information. You can also attach pictures of the expense receipts for easy verification. Mileage claim creation in reimbursement is also possible by setting rates per mile traveled.
This is a much more ideal scenario for both employees and accountants. Employees don’t need to save receipts for the entire month and create lengthy expense reports and accountants don’t need to follow up manually with each employee to do so.
Volopay corporate cards
To make things more convenient, you can give corporate cards to employees for travel expenses. You can set each card with a specific spending limit so that there is no overspending.
The MCC(Merchant Category Code) blocking feature will stop employees from spending on things that are not permitted as per the corporate travel policy. This mechanism of the corporate card that is in the works will ensure that there are no out-of-policy expenses and you won’t have to deal with reimbursements that do not meet the travel policy requirements.
TruTrip integration
Volopay has a TruTrip integration that allows users to directly access the travel booking portal from Volopay and easily book transport and accommodation. This integration also allows you to pay easily using your Volopay account balance.
This integration is beneficial for employees as they get the choice to choose their preferred travel mode and accommodation while the employer still has visibility and control over the process ensuring compliance with the corporate travel policy.
Accounting integrations
Lastly, Volopay has native integrations with some of the leading accounting tools in the world including Netsuite, Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks, Deskera, Tally, and more! Even if you don’t use one of the tools from our native integration list, you can still easily export and sync data for accounting purposes using our Universal CSV feature.