The Power of Seamless Travel and Expense Integration

For many finance departments, the travel and expense (T&E) process is a disconnected and painful ordeal. Travel is booked on one system (or multiple systems), and expenses are submitted through another. The result is a time-consuming, manual process of matching bookings to expense reports, chasing receipts, and re-keying data.

The solution is a single, integrated platform where travel booking and expense management are two sides of the same coin. This seamless integration is the key to unlocking true efficiency and gaining real-time control over your company's second-largest controllable spend.

From Disconnected Data to a Single Source of Truth

When travel and expense are separate, data is fragmented. A booking made on an airline website doesn't automatically create an expense entry. This forces employees into the dreaded task of manually creating expense reports long after their trip is over.

• The Integrated Workflow: With a platform like Routespring, when a flight or hotel is booked, a corresponding expense item is automatically created in the system. The data—vendor, date, amount, department code—is already there. There is no manual entry required.
• The Benefit: This eliminates the need for expense reports for all pre-trip bookings. It saves countless hours for your travelers and your finance team. It also ensures data accuracy, as there is no risk of manual entry errors.

Real-Time Visibility into Spending

With separate systems, you don't know what has been spent on travel until an expense report is submitted, which could be weeks after the trip. This makes real-time budget management impossible.

• The Integrated Workflow: Because the expense is created at the time of booking, your financial dashboard reflects the committed spend instantly.
• The Benefit: Finance leaders and department heads can see exactly how much of their travel budget has been spent and what is remaining, in real time. This allows for proactive budget management and prevents overspending before it happens. You can track spending against specific projects or events as it occurs, not a month later.

A Better Traveler Experience

A clunky expense process is one of the biggest complaints from business travelers. Simplifying it is a direct investment in employee satisfaction.

• The Integrated Workflow: For on-trip expenses like meals or taxis, the traveler simply snaps a photo of the receipt with their mobile app. The app's OCR technology automatically reads the data and creates the expense item, which is then added to their existing trip report.
• The Benefit: The entire process of creating and submitting an expense report can be done in minutes from a smartphone. This eliminates a major point of friction for your travelers and ensures timely submission.

Integrating your travel management and expense processes is the most impactful step you can take to modernize your T&E program. It delivers cost savings, operational efficiency, and a vastly improved experience for your team.

See how Routespring's integrated platform can transform your T&E process.