{"id":3620,"date":"2018-08-01T16:22:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T16:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=3620"},"modified":"2022-09-05T19:17:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T19:17:58","slug":"cohesive-policy-and-structure-for-corporate-travel-and-travel-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2018\/08\/cohesive-policy-and-structure-for-corporate-travel-and-travel-expense\/","title":{"rendered":"Cohesive Policy and Structure for Corporate Travel and Travel Expense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

With many of the most valuable employees traveling, including senior management and salespeople, having an effective corporate travel policy<\/a> is critical to managing expenses, and enhancing the experience and effectiveness of key personnel.\u00a0 By including negotiated discounts and leveraging a company\u2019s purchasing power, effective policies can reduce costs, make the travel booking processes more efficient, streamline the reimbursement processes<\/a>, and help the company avoid fraud or misuse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Often the people responsible for the upfront part of the travel process and those overseeing the compliance reviews and booking of travel expenses after the travel has taken place, have little interaction with, or knowledge of, each other\u2019s areas of responsibility or challenges.\u00a0 Making travel arrangements and processing expense reports<\/a> includes two key parts of the same end-to-end process. This structure is best designed when there is involvement, participation, and knowledge at all levels and across the range of roles for employees responsible for each detailed procedural step of the process on behalf of the company and individual travelers.<\/span><\/p>\n

iPollingTM<\/sup> Results Review<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Peeriosity\u2019s iPollingTM<\/sup> capability was recently used by a Director of Global Finance Shared Services at one of our member companies, who was interested in finding out what companies have a combined travel arrangements and expense reimbursement policy in place and, if so, if the Corporate Travel function (travel arrangements, travel vendor management) and the Travel Expense function (processing and auditing of expense reports) are under the same organizational management.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first question asked whether or not there was one combined policy for both the upfront Travel process and the after-travel process for expense reimbursement.\u00a0 Interestingly, 81% of member companies indicate that there was one combined policy, with the balance of 19% indicating there were separate policies for each.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"iPolling:<\/p>\n

When it comes to the organizational alignment of these two functions, only 28% indicated that both areas reported to the same management, ranging from Finance, HR, or another functional area.\u00a0 For 72% of member companies, the processes report to different managers, with 58% indicating the reporting is to different managers in different functions.\u00a0 Here are the details:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"iPolling:<\/p>\n

Here are some comments from responding companies, including their response to the first poll question regarding policy structure:<\/span><\/p>\n