Annual Purchasing Card and Travel Expense Benchmarking Highlights
Peeriosity members recently participated in the annual Corporate Card research area surveys for both the Purchasing Card and Travel Expense process areas. The survey collects specific information related to clearly defined activities via Peeriosity’s online data collection tools. Excluded activities are also defined to ensure the benchmarks are comparable. Along with the Shared Services Back-office Structure and Design survey, members have a complete picture of how their organization benchmarks structure, cost, and productivity.
Peeriosity members have access to the full detailed results of this survey, as well as others by functional area. A few highlights from this survey are outlined below.
Organizational Structure
The benchmark survey found that both Purchasing Card and Travel Expense are, in most cases, managed by Shared Services, while Travel Management is primarily managed within Corporate. Some results:
Extent of Standardization
The survey indicated that the trend toward global standardization is progressing slowly. Standards by country are still most prominent.
Functional Area |
Global |
Regional |
Country |
Other |
Purchasing Card |
17% |
29% |
49% |
5% |
Travel Expense |
26% |
32% |
39% |
3% |
Travel Management |
19% |
26% |
43% |
12% |
Sourcing
Organizations are most likely to outsource their Travel Management services:
Functional Area |
Captive Onshore |
Captive Offshore |
Outsourced |
Hybrid |
Purchasing Card |
73% |
8% |
11% |
10% |
Travel Expense |
62% |
4% |
10% |
24% |
Travel Management |
46% |
3% |
31% |
21% |
Other Highlights
· Purchasing cards continues to eliminate the need for excessive handling to process large volumes of small dollar transactions, reducing the overall cost of Accounts Payable and the P2P process. Median benchmark results indicate 25% of indirect purchase volume representing 2% of indirect spending. Some 1st quartile organizations have more than 80% of indirect spending through purchasing cards.
· There is an almost an 11x difference between 1st quartile (midpoint) and 4th quartile (midpoint) performance on the cost per expense report, and a related 8x difference in productivity per FTE, indicating a significant amount of opportunity for most organizations.
· 1st quartile performers have used a combination of technology, standardization, and organizational structure to optimize their processes and continue to benchmark their processes with other organizations and collaborate on best practices.
Peeriosity members have access to the complete detailed results for these surveys, as well as individual surveys by functional area that provide quantitative benchmarking results for cost and productivity. Additionally, Peeriosity members have direct access to top performers via online toolsets.
How are you benchmarking your Corporate Card and Travel Expense processes?
Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?
Peeriosity members are invited to log into www.Peeriosity.com to join the discussion and connect with Peers. Membership is for practitioners only, with no consultants or vendors permitted. To learn more about a Peeriosity membership Click here.