As 2018 rapidly approaches, many Canadian businesses are eyeing ways they can costs while simultaneously boosting revenue. This is the objective of business and not a bad one of course, but it’s important to cut costs in the right way, and often one of the first things on the chopping block are related to corporate travel.
Most businesses have some ways to effectively reduce business travel costs, like using a private jet charter price estimator to compare costs when renting out a private plane for business trips, or ensuring that travel arrangements happen well in advance. Defining an upper limit on employee travel expenses might be another step taken to ensure minimum expenditure. Such measures do help reduce costs and save money for the business in the long run, but they might not be enough. Bringing in a more cost-effective plan for the overall T&E policy sometimes becomes necessary.
Taking an ax to your travel and expense policy may not be as beneficial as you think, however because it’s going to leave for some displeased and possibly less productive employees.

With T&E, it’s essential to think about ways not to cut everything from policies that your employees might enjoy when they travel for work, but instead to be smart with policies, streamline them and make them more efficient. The following are some tips to do that.

Think About Corporate Culture

Too often in Canadian businesses, the corporate culture and the travel and expense policy are totally separate from one another. One doesn’t seem to influence the other in any discernible way, and this isn’t the best way of doing things.

You want to make sure that when you re-evaluate your policy for efficiency, you’re reworking it within the context of your corporate culture, to make employees happier.

Automation

If you really want to improve T&E efficiency in 2018, it’s time to invest in a modern automated expense management solution. This takes the unnecessary steps for things like approvals out of the equation and keeps the policy fair and consistent.

Relying on automation with expense management means decreased the likelihood of errors occurring and it lowers costs without having to make cuts to what employees can do while they’re traveling. It also leads to faster reimbursements, and that’s certainly going to make for happier employees.

Identify Fraud

Thinking that your employees are being fraudulent when it comes to expenses isn’t necessarily a pleasant thought, but it is important to put some focus on identifying where fraud can be happening and put a stop to it.

If your company can cut down on fraud, it’s another way to save money without taking anything out of the T&E policy that employees like.

Spotting fraud can be easier with an automated expense management solution because it offers centralized visibility so you can spot red flags before they go too far.

Ask For Employee Input

T&E policies should be based on key employees because they’re the ones affected by them. When you’re re-evaluating your policies for 2018, ask for input from employees. Ask them where they see inefficiencies, where things could be made easier for them, and things they might be okay with sacrificing.

If you’re asking for the input it’s going to improve employee buy-in and that’s critical because it’s the employees who are responsible for implementation and compliance with T&E policies.

Finally, evaluate your ROI for your T&E spend. This is important, and it’s something a lot of businesses don’t do right now. You need to make sure that where money is going is worthwhile, and this will help you make smart, targeted changes in policies, if necessary.

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