{"id":1807,"date":"2014-08-28T20:57:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T20:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2022-05-12T01:13:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T01:13:42","slug":"why-travel-expense-exceptions-to-save-money-may-be-a-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2014\/08\/why-travel-expense-exceptions-to-save-money-may-be-a-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Travel Expense Exceptions to Save Money May Be a Bad Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Travel Expense Reporting process<\/a> is typically an insignificant component of the overall shared services effort from a complexity, headcount, or cost perspective; however, because corporate travelers<\/a> are most often senior-level employees or staff with direct roles in the sales effort when it comes to image, the T&E process gets a lot of attention. For Shared Services managers, while delighting the customer is a worthy objective when it comes to allowing exceptions to travel policy for the purpose of saving money, it might actually be a bad idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all seen requests for exceptions for purchases that fall outside of guidelines for reasons that are justified as being in the best interests of the company.\u00a0 One Peeriosity member company recently identified instances where employees actually went outside of the travel expense<\/a> policy in order to save the company money (for example, by using personal airline points or rewards to save money and then asking for reimbursement for their personal credit card membership). \u00a0They were interested in knowing \u201cwhere to draw the line\u201d when permitting these types of expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n

To better understand the issue, the member worked with Peeriosity to create iPollingTM<\/sup> questions to find out how often exceptions for the purpose of saving the company money happened, and when they did, whether or not the manager’s pre-approval was required.<\/span><\/p>\n

The results suggest that while almost all companies only infrequently allow \u201ccost-saving exceptions\u201d, for 65% of member companies these types of exceptions do occasionally happen.\u00a0 However, at 32% of member companies, these types of exceptions were not permitted under any circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ipolling<\/p>\n

Reading the comments of iPolling respondents is helpful for developing an understanding of why allowing exceptions may be a bad idea, even when the initial reason is to save money.\u00a0 Here are some of the comments:<\/span><\/p>\n