We present to you a list of the top 10 travel management software from our in-depth analysis of 40+ market players. It comes with a comparative table, and we deep dive into each software, its features, pros, cons, and our final verdict to help you make the right choice for your company.
Top 10 best travel management software – Comparative table
* Happay is the only expense management software with a complete automated Expense Capture module with receipt capture, corporate card, auto SMS capture, and email plugin.
Travel Management Software | Market Segment | Integrated Payments, Expense & Travel | Savings with multiple TMC integrations | Self-booking tool in mobile | Automatic Airlines GST Calculation | Missed Savings Alerts | Mileage Tracking | Starting Price |
Happay | Mid-market & Large Enterprise | Yes | High | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Contact for Pricing |
SAP Concur | Growing Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | No | No | Yes | Free trial, 9$ Per Report (avg price) |
ITILITE | Small & Medium Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | No | No | No | Per trip charge of $9.99* |
myBiz | Start-ups & Small Enterprises | No | Moderate | Yes | No | No | No | Entry Level Price Free |
TravelPerk | Start-ups, Small & medium Enterprises | No | Moderate | Yes | No | No | No | Entry Level Price Free (basic features) |
TravelBank | Small & Medium Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | NA | No | Yes | Free trial available, Contact for Pricing |
Egencia | Small & Medium Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | NA | No | No | Contact for Custom Quote |
Coupa | Small Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | No | No | No | Contact for Pricing |
AirBnb For Work | Start-ups & Small Enterprises | No | Limited | NA | NA | NA | No | Contact for Pricing |
Trip Actions | Small Enterprises | No | Limited | Yes | No | Yes | No | Entry Level Price Free (basic features) |
A quick pick of the top 10 travel management software
What is travel management software?
As per the report released by Market Research Future (2022), the travel management software market is expected to cross $17.4 billion by the year 2030 (with a CAGR of 10.5%).
Leave stressing over your unsettled claims from previous trips and planning your next trips in the past. It’s time to move on! Automated travel management software helps plan your trips in a jiffy while significantly shortening the reimbursement TAT (turnaround time).
Travel management software manages the organization’s travel activities. Automating the process gives firms a significant cost and time advantage as workflows are more streamlined and efficient.
Planning business trips becomes quick and easy as booking flights, hotel accommodations, and cab services can be easily accomplished through mobile devices.
Here are a few things that travel management software can do for your company:
- Save time and effort by letting you do all booking (flights, cab, hotels, etc) with an integrated self-booking tool (SBT)
- Integrate multiple approval workflows (pre-book, pre-trip, post-trip) in one place
- Replaces manual workflows with efficient, accurate, and automatic processes
- Insightful and robust reporting and analytics
- Greater visibility into travel expenses helps track missed savings
- Compliance improves and stays audit-ready at all times
- Employee experience improves significantly
Also, Read: 10 Best Expense Management Software and Tools
10 Best travel management software tools & systems
1. Happay
Happay offers a next-gen solution for travel management. It also provides a one-stop solution for expense management and corporate payments. With over 6500 clients across verticals, the corporate travel booking software has steadily gained ground as a dependable and scalable solution.
The most substantial advantage in favor of Happy is that they offer a complete, end-to-end travel and expense management software. Happay is well-known as the best T&E platform that provides you with everything you need to take care of travel expenses effectively and efficiently- planning, capturing, reporting, approving, and reconciling.
Happay features
- Planning – Planning business trips can be painful, but Happay’s easy-to-use automated solution ensures that everything is completed online. Travel request forms may be used online to initiate the process and request authorization. The finance teams and travel desks share access to prevent unauthorized/last-minute trips.
- Capturing – Ranked as the best travel management software, the tool is powered by AI. As it extracts data from the source (SMS, email, credit card statement, Uber and so on), data capture is accurate. The automated capture process eliminates manual efforts; promotes timely claims submission while keeping employees happy and productive.
- Reporting – Happay’s travel management software transforms your paper-based processes by auto-verifying travel expense submissions against travel policies (built into the system). Apart from being 100% policy compliant, your reports will offer superior analysis and better insights.
- Approving – The biggest challenge with approvals is that most managers do not have all the information they need to make an informed choice. Happay’s platform ensures that approvers get complete visibility into expenses and violations (to override if they need to). Further, They may seek (chat in real-time) clarifications from employees before giving approvals (or submissions may be auto-approved where compliant).
- Reconciling – Finance and accounting teams can save time and effort by viewing travel expenses in real time. It takes care of the time-consuming process of manual verifications. The automation also provides an end-to-end audit trail and prevents delays in settling claims.
Pros of Happay
- Happay’s travel management software app is a multi-supplier and multi-request model with lesser booking hassles, offering complete visibility of trip costs to approvers.
- The software is GST compliant with airlines and offers a complete GST portal integration with a GST tracker. State-wise, GST details are captured automatically. This compliance with GST saves 5% on flight tickets.
- Freeze-fare feature is unique to Happay as users can freeze a fare as they wait for approvals from managers. No need to worry about fares increasing during that time.
- It offers superior expense capture capabilities with web and mobile OCR facilities.
- The expense capture feature also offers Google Maps-based route tracker available in real-time with WhatsApp integration capability.
Cons of Happay
- Sometimes, Happay’s travel management app has trouble supporting languages such as Japanese and Chinese.
What we like about Happay
The Happay Travel Management System features a robust analytics engine. It converts data into easily readable reports that finance leaders and CFOs can use to improve travel policy compliance, increase cost savings, and enhance the efficiencies of internal processes.
Secondly, Happay’s travel expense management software offers complete visibility of travel expenses while capturing GST details quickly and assuring 100% compliance. The GST compliance saves 5% on flights, while the finance team has access to each flight booking invoice.
To know how Happay’s travel management software can help your business, schedule a demo.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Suitable for: Small, medium, and large enterprises
Also, Read: 15 Best Expense Management Software in India
2. Sap Concur
SAP Concur, provides integrated travel, expense, and invoice management software solutions. By automating the most tedious part of travel management- recording expenses, Concur solutions improves the employee experience. With AI and real-time data support, everything is audit-ready.
SAP Concur’s advantage lies in the visibility and control that its travel management software offers. Approvers can consent to travel expenses from anywhere, employers can capture their expenses while on the go, and this information can be collated quickly and easily without any manual interventions.
Also Read: Top 5 SAP Concur Alternatives
SAP Concur Feature
- The software tool makes submitting and recording travel expenses easy and makes the company’s workflows more effective.
- Automation not only helps to control what you spend but offers a bird’s eye view to manage all aspects of expenses.
- As you start accumulating data, you also begin to reap benefits in terms of better analysis and the ability to strategize better.
- SAP Concur’s travel management software helps create, submit, and approve expense reports, through any device, on the go.
Pros of SAP Concur
- The corporate credit card expenses get loaded into the software as the transactions happen. This saves time and effort for the employees.
- Once the expenses are recorded, the expense items are matched with the expense type without any manual intervention.
- The software is intelligent enough that previous selections are retained in the memory, so the report review and finalization are easy to complete.
Cons of SAP Concur
- According to user reviews on G2, the travel management tool may be slightly complex for first-time users. For instance, some expenses require an extra level of authentication. Here, understanding the policy before you record such expenses may be time-consuming.
- As per a review on TrustRadius, the app does not allow users to edit the field for room tax calculations. So, the numbers do not match the correct amount on the receipt (as it seems to round off figures).
- A TrustRadius user review suggests that the inability to change the date of scanning expenses is a con. For instance, many travelers scan their travel expenses at the end of the trip, and the app does not allow them to do so.
What we like about SAP Concur
What works in favor of SAP Concur is the software’s ability to connect trips, travelers, and itineraries across multiple channels. This not only enhances the traveler’s experience but simplifies the process too. The product offers travel management tools that optimize productivity and enhance the travel experience.
Pricing: They offer a free trial. However, on average, the basic plan for small businesses starts at $9 per report.
Suitable for: Growing enterprises
Quick Read: 7 Top Online Travel Booking Trends and Statistics
3. ITILITE
ITILITE is a SaaS company offering AI-powered travel management tools. By digitizing travel management, companies can reduce costs and improves employee experience. Among numerous other features, ITILITE provides personalized hotel and flight bookings, travel planning and management for clients, a virtual travel consultant, customized reporting, employee tracking, and so on.
Their travel management tool offers travel recommendations to employees based on the travel expense policies of the company, their preferences, and past trips. Employees save time and can make better, more informed decisions.
ITILITE’s unique travel inventories make it possible for employees to make better travel choices, thereby reducing travel expenses for the company.
Also, Read: 8 Best ITILITE Alternatives and Competitors
ITILITE features
- ITILITE’s travel management software focuses on reducing costs for companies by incentivizing employees who pick lower-priced options for travel.
- The software promises an intuitive system that offers intelligent and personalized options as employees plan their business trips. Their app is designed for optimal performance while assuring a user-friendly experience.
- The travel management tools promise better insights into the company’s performance and a superior ability to forecast future spending.
- The software includes an incentivization module that hopes to bring a behavioral change in employees.
- The software promises a 90-second booking experience made possible through a completely automated process.
Pros of ITILITE
- It offers a self-booking tool that supports personalized booking options.
- Dynamic policy integrations are possible as they can custom-build your policies into the program.
- The travel management tool offers real-time data visibility into travel expenses, allowing finance leaders to make informed decisions.
- The software supports your travel requirements by working as a virtual T & E consultant.
Cons of ITILITE
- As per a user review on G2 seem to feel like the user experience is slightly lacking, especially when users try to revise dates or times of the trip. Further, they think it may be better if the app shows all available options rather than the custom ones.
- Per G2 user review, booking confirmation delays, especially in hotel bookings seem to disappoint travelers.
What we like about ITILITE
A notable feature of ITILITE is the personalized recommendations for traveling employees. This shortens the booking time while allowing them to benefit from it too.
For instance, the company may incentivize the employees to choose the less-expensive option during the booking process. ITILITE creates a winning proposition for employers and employees by making this possible through its software.
Pricing:
ITILITE offers three different price editions for their travel management software.
- $4.99 (₹360 approx.) per month where users can submit an unlimited number of reports per active user per month. This price is when you pay in advance for a whole year.
- $7.99 (₹575 approx.) per month where users can submit an unlimited number of reports per active user per month. This rate is valid when you pay month-on-month.
- $9.99 (₹822 approx.) per trip where multiple flights and hotel bookings are included.
Suitable for: Small and medium firms
Also, Read: How To Streamline Travel Request Approval Workflow?
4. myBiz
myBiz is the business version of Make My Trip, and it offers a simple and integrated travel management solution for businesses. Seeking to provide a smooth experience as travelers plan and book their business trips, myBiz offers desktop and mobile versions of corporate travel booking software tools.
Their expertise in this field allows them to provide numerous booking options with access to Make My Trip’s inventory.
myBiz features
- It offers an AI/ML-driven platform that gives travelers a personal experience.
- The well-designed platform offers easy integration with HRMS ensuring complete policy compliance.
- Assures better control over expenses and real-time reporting through an intelligent dashboard that can be customized.
- They offer Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions (MICE) services, and other corporate gifting options.
- They offer round-the-clock exceptional customer service to their clients.
Pros of myBiz
- One of the most significant plus points of travel management software is its flexibility and options for business travelers.
- The software saves GST numbers automatically as the bookings are finalized, saving time and effort for travelers. Also, it provides options for special corporate fares for low-cancellation fees, free seats, date changes, or free meals.
Cons of myBiz
- A user on G2 seems to feel that the options for booking flights and hotels are slightly more limited than on other sites compelling them to look for opportunities elsewhere.
- Many users on G2 seem to feel that the flight tickets are more expensive than the other sites.
What we like about myBiz
Access to MakeMyTrip’s inventory is an advantage for travel management software. Business travelers can choose from various options, stay compliant, and plan their trips easily.
Pricing: Apart from a free trial, when you signup for the travel management platform, you can avail of basic features free of cost.
Suitable for: Startups and small firms
Quick Read: How to Calculate & Minise Business Travel Cost?
5. TravelPerk
TravelPerk began with a mission to change how people think about business travel. So, the focus of this travel software is employee experience.
The platform features a large travel inventory that makes the booking (compliant with the travel policies of the company) and tracking experience quick and effective. It also ensures that those working in the background (finance teams and other stakeholders in the company) are equipped with the correct information, reports, analytics, and other intuitive numbers to make better decisions.
TravelPerk offers a free business travel software option along with other platforms or systems that may be customized to suit your business.
Quick Read: A Guide to Corporate Booking Tool
TravelPerk features
A well-designed travel management tool helps travel desks, managers, or users to block, trace, and analyze your company’s business travel. Here are some of the best features that travel perk offers:
- The travel management tools that TravelPerk promises to transform the way your employees travel. A smooth and easy experience, users can book flights/trains, accommodation, and other forms of travel while managing costs using a single device and while on the go.
- TravelPerk’s software system features a simple yet intuitive design that makes planning and booking business travel trips as exciting as organizing a vacation. The system conveniently stores preferences, loyalty points, and other travel-specific data. This makes it easy for future bookings.
- Your company’s travel policy can be easily set up and built into the platform. This gives you complete control to set your rules and preferences. The agile platform works well for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Pros of TravelPerk
- It gives an intelligent overview of all available flights and travel options. Users can quickly browse through the window to get an idea of what suits them.
- It offers a very user-friendly app with a great customer support team.
Cons of TravelPerk
- Regarding flight booking, users on TrustRadius feel that some options do not show up while information about flight time changes or cancellations is not updated quickly enough.
- Setting too many filters for flight options is a tad bit difficult. So, it seems challenging for some users on TrustRadius if you need to select the filter for price and flight timings.
What we like about TravelPerk
TravelPerk has a large inventory of accommodations, assuring you of the best rates while giving your employees an option to pick from a vast selection of hotels. Further, they are responsive and available to handle anything that needs attention.
Another feature that works in their favor is that they claim to save 20% of your company’s annual travel budget as they help calculate and recover VAT spent on flights, hotels, cabs, or trains.
Pricing: TravelPerk offers three pricing editions.
- Free: Offering access to basic features, with this version, you can consolidate invoices, unlimited cost centers, one policy, and approval workflow, book travel and hotel from one place, and use their travel inventory
- Premium: Available at $99 per month, you can incorporate up to 10 policy and approval workflows, track 5 budgets by cost center, unlimited integrations with other applications, and concierge services (on special requests).
- Pro: Available at $299 per month, you can access advanced tools in spend, budgeting, and process management. You can incorporate unlimited policy and workflow approvals, unlimited budget (cost centers), custom reports, access to corporate rates for travel, and customized integrations with your systems.
Suitable For: Small and medium enterprises, Startups
Also, Read: How to Calculate Business Travel Cost?
6. TravelBank
Offering an automated travel management tool through a business travel platform, TravelBank aims to help your company reduce company expenditure on business travel and the power to make better data-backed decisions.
A curated travel booking portal encourages users to make more cost-effective choices as they plan their business travel. The user-friendly platform offers the convenience of designing a custom travel management system irrespective of the organization’s size.
TravelBank features
- For any travel management system, the ability to provide a wide range of options is critical. TravelBank offers access to numerous lodging facilities (including home-sharing possibilities). The feature is intuitive and flexible enough to offer other means to provide better savings.
- The platform also offers great rates and options for flights and cabs. Better corporate rates for flights combined with ease of booking cabs using any device make for a great travel management tool.
- Group travel arrangements are a breeze as hotels, travel, and other logistics are quickly and efficiently accomplished. Customized reporting adds to the appeal of this software system.
- TravelBank also offers the convenience of interacting with a support member to tackle any issues or clarifications traveling employees may have.
Pros of TravelBank
- The travel management software’s capabilities ensure that it can easily pull receipts from all relevant credit card statements.
- The software tool ranks high (G2) in employee reimbursement methods where it quickly settles the employee’s reimbursed settlement into the bank account or the company’s payroll system.
- For trip notifications, the software integrates easily with the calendaring systems of the users to ensure that upcoming travel notifications are correct and on time.
Cons of TravelBank
- Users on G2 claim that updating/changing the travel dates or times seems slightly tricky as users need to back up to modify it rather than changing it on the current screen.
- G2 users seem to feel that once expense reports have been submitted, it is challenging to modify them.
What we like about TravelBank
What works in TravelBank’s favor is having a global presence and servicing over 50k companies. Further, it offers a complete solution that includes expenses, travel, an innovative travel-related marketplace, in-house customer support, and rewards.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Suitable for: Small and medium firms
Also Read: Travel and Expense Automation
7. Egencia
Expedia Corporate Travel, as it was called initially, began in 2005. It is now called Egencia and offers a complete and integrated platform for travel management. Based in Seattle, Washington, Egencia is a travel management company that caters to all businesses looking to change the travel experience of their employees.
They aim to modernize corporate travel programs by providing consumer-like travel options for business travelers. Egencia offers a consistent and well-designed travel management software system that supports your travel management program.
Egencia features
- Their travel management software is optimized for all companies- small, medium, or large. Focusing on the technology, their architecture is enhanced with AI to ensure that your experience is intuitive, insightful, and relevant.
- Egencia features an open API platform so you can automate, integrate, and simplify the travel management process in your company.
- Egencia is a travel management tool that offers actionable insights to help redesign or strengthen your travel management program. Intelligent and intuitive reporting contributes to better decision-making.
- This travel software also tackles travel risk management as the software’s data and information can help you design an adaptable and comprehensive business travel policy.
- With employee well-being and experience as the focus, the software can support users with real-time data.
Pros of Egencia
- The innovative categorization feature is a plus point. The software assigns categories or accounts to those expenses based on past entries and other credit card statements.
- According to G2 reviews, the software scores high on advanced integrations with travel partners such as Uber, Hotels, and other airline ticketing systems.
Cons of Egencia
- A G2 user review claims to face minor challenges when booking train tickets outside their country. This is taken care of with an email to customer support.
- A G2 user feels that making changes such as seat assignments on a flight or other travel upgrades must be possible through the app rather than through the airline.
What we like about Egencia
Egencia’s travel management platform performs well in employee experience as users are fully supported. This begins with booking, but it is only a part of the entire experience. Focusing on safety, Egencia also provides safety checklists along with information about accommodations that offer exceptional hygiene and safety during the stay.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Suitable for: small, medium, and large enterprises
Quick Read: 6 Best Travel & Expense Software
8. Coupa
Coupa offers to eliminate complex, manual workflows and replace them with a platform designed for a modern traveler, focusing on simplified business travel management systems.
Coupa’s travel management software provides a comprehensive travel and expense solution. Further, it offers a superior solution for capturing and managing the travel experience.
The captured data is used to generate intelligent insights and better capabilities. Additionally, challenges about employee spending, policy violations, and poor visibility of expenses are easily scaled using this management software.
Coupa features
- Coupa’s travel management software system offers GPS-based mileage tracking and targeted recommendations. The intelligent travel software platform helps set spending limits (per policy guidelines) so users can make travel arrangements with pre-trip approvals.
- The travel management tool attempts to modify user behavior by offering frugal meters and report scoring to encourage traveling employees to choose appropriate options as they plan their business trips.
- They support multiple currencies and languages worldwide.
Pros of Coupa
- The mobile app fares rather well as it is user-friendly and intuitive. Further, it ranks well in the ability to capture and parse receipts while assigning them to a report all through the mobile app.
- The software performs well, allowing users to access and complete tasks without lag or problems.
Cons of Coupa
- A G2 user seems to feel that the unavailability of analytics and reports (based on past expenses or travel) on the phone makes it slightly challenging.
What we like about Coupa
Among the various features that Coupa’s web-based platform and the app offer, mileage tracking, where users can keep a log of their mileage, is impressive. Whether it is used to claim tax deductions or travel reimbursements, the app allows users to track their mileage using GPS or maps available on any mobile device.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Suitable for: Small businesses
Also, Read: Best Use of Happay Travel and Expense (T&E) Analytics
9. Airbnb for work
Airbnb for work is a great travel management software tool that gives you access to well-designed dashboards. These dashboards facilitate easy workflows for users, travel desks, and managers.
The intelligent and intuitive dashboard combines the accumulated travel data in a single place. Airbnb for work offers an easy-to-navigate platform that provides better control for employers and convenience for traveling employees.
For instance, a simple world map on the dashboard indicates users’ current and future travel plans. It also displays the contact and accommodation information of the travelers. The travel software also records expense information and collates the same for reporting.
Airbnb for Work features
- The convenience and simplicity of the platform are probably one of the most significant advantages of using Airbnb for work.
- Measuring and reporting travel-related information is simple as the collected data can be easily exported. Further, you can categorize travelers based on your requirements and allocate unique payment methods to each as you streamline the spending process.
- Airbnb for work associates with several corporate travel management companies to ensure that your employees have the best travel experience.
Pros of Airbnb for Work
- A relatively simple and easy-to-use interface allows users to plan and manage their travel itinerary without interacting with multiple sites or people.
Cons of Airbnb for Work
- According to a user review on TrustRadius Airbnb is more of hosting service, and therefore, day-to-day challenges are hard to manage.
What we like about Airbnb for Work
Users seem to appreciate the easy-to-use dashboard that Airbnb For Work features. For instance, if you plan and book a trip for someone else, the dashboard makes it easy to track, modify, confirm, analyze, and control every aspect of the traveler’s journey.
Further, if you look at it from the software side, the design is very user-friendly and intuitive. Additionally, the data is organized well, so it is easy to pull up whatever numbers you need.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Suitable for: Small businesses and startups
Also, Read: A Guide to Business Travel Management
10. TripActions
TripActions offers a complete travel management software solution and is currently being used by several customers across the globe. Apart from travel management, the platform also provides expense management solutions and corporate cards.
They aim to provide safe and comfortable business travel options and help reduce overall travel spending. Offering an online booking tool that is modern, intuitive, and easy to use, TripActions has been steadily gaining ground as a popular travel and expense management solution.
They feature a large inventory of flights, cabs, and accommodations combined with AI to ensure business travelers enjoy the travel experience.
Features
TripActions features
- One of the features of this travel management solution is the availability of support for travelers 24/7. With a vast inventory of flights, car rental services, and accommodations across the globe, the platform makes it easy for travelers to match their needs with their travel, stay within the corporate travel policy guidelines and be productive.
- The app ensures that you can book your trip, record your travel expenses, and claim them easily while on the go.
- TripActions allows travelers to choose trip-enabled cards (no need to use personal credit cards anymore).
- The software offers complete visibility into employee travel plans and ensures safety and continuity during such travel.
Pros of TripActions
- The simplistic yet powerful software platform allows users to view past bookings, making planning the present trip easy and quick.
- Users seem to think their travel counting toward Amazon Gift Cards and My Club points is a plus point.
Cons of TripActions
- According to a user review on G2, it is inconvenient for users that you cannot add all transactions pertaining to a trip automatically.
- The expenses must be added individually which is time-consuming. Further, the conversions (expenses pertaining to international travel) were inaccurate.
What we like about TripActions
TripActions offers travel continuity. The all-time support for business travelers as they actively monitor such travel and offer assistance to resolve any travel-based issues (email, chat, or phone) is a plus.
Pricing
TripActions offers two pricing editions. Growth is their free version for the first 50 monthly active users. They charge a small fee for live travel agent support in this version. Contact TripActions for other options and prices.
Suitable for: Small businesses
Also, Read: What is a travel management company?
Understanding travel management
Did you know that there are about 445 million business trips every year? Did you also know that business travelers constitute 12% of an airline’s passengers but they comprise 75% of the profit?
If in some way, you are part of this statistic, wouldn’t you want to know how you can make this process easy and stress-free?
That’s what travel management is about- putting together a structure or workflow to organize and facilitate business travel in an organization.
How does travel management software help different businesses?
Small and mid-size businesses
Broadly, small and mid-size businesses (SMEs) are defined as those firms that employ 200 or fewer people.
Small and mid-sized businesses have a huge interest in business travel as this gives them just what they need to pull ahead of their competitors. As travel picks up, don’t you think it makes perfect sense to use the best travel management software? Let’s look at why we think you must.
- Time: Do you think your employees will be happy to spend additional hours during a regular workday planning a business trip? Why not use corporate travel booking software that minimizes the time it takes to finalize a trip?
- Comparisons: Corporate travel booking software provides a sure-shot way to help your employees look for great deals and safe travel options quickly and easily.
- Duty of care: Employers owe a duty of care to their employees as they travel for work. Travel management software offers several options for employees to ensure that they travel safely.
- Policy compliance: Travel management systems can take care of compliance for you and your employees.
Consider the time and effort savings if your software allows your employee to book a ticket only if it is compliant with your travel policies.
Large businesses
Naturally, travel management is a much more complicated affair in large enterprises. Here are some reasons why large enterprises must use travel management software.
- Tackling overspending more effectively: Customised travel management systems can help you tackle travel overspending. For instance, policies can be incorporated into the architecture so your employees can proceed with booking only if satisfies pre-defined criteria.
- Expense Reporting: Stop wasting time sorting through physical receipts and hundreds of emails. Travel management systems eliminate the risks (errors, frauds, etc.) associated with processing physical documents and increase the efficiency and speed of expense reporting.
- Automates the approval: The approval process may be simple or complicated depending on the size of the business and the hierarchy.
You can customize travel management software to incorporate even the most complicated approval workflows. It reduces errors and fraud while offering you better control over travel expenses.
Also, Read: What is Spend Management?
Why do you need travel management software (TMS)?
As Charles Darwin said, it is not the strongest of species or the most intelligent that survives, but the one that’s most adaptable to change.
With most enterprises shifting to completely automating their travel management processes, isn’t it time to consider it? Here’s why you must be ready for the change and make the shift today.
A good travel management software ensures:
- Using corporate travel booking software, your employees can easily block, book, and organize business travel on their own. Employees can book all modes of transport using a single interface to ensure their business trips are planned quickly and efficiently.
- No matter how complicated your approval workflows are, they can be easily incorporated into the travel management system.
- Your company can enforce travel expense policies and keep employees accountable during business trips.
- Integration with your existing accounting and other software makes workflows efficient and effective.
Read more to understand how the travel and expense management process works.
Benefits of travel management software
Any travel management system must offer seamless integration with travel management companies so users can benefit from real-time price quotes, easy booking tools, and taking care of the entire travel logistics in one place.
A well-curated travel management software system affords businesses several advantages:
1. Brings down your costs
With the option of choosing from numerous flights, travel options, and accommodations, comes the benefit of cost-effectiveness. The algorithms within the software ensure that travelers are given a chance to pick from the most cost-effective options.
This ensures that your company gains from discounts, meal vouchers, and other loyalty-driven pricing opportunities.
2. Easier processes
One of the most significant benefits of adopting travel software is the more accessible and effective workflows. Traditionally, approvals for travel would take time as they went through the hierarchy in the organization.
However, the automated version ensures that this takes place quickly as managers are informed of approval as soon as it is raised. Once permission has been given, travelers may book and plan their trips accordingly.
3. No more manual tasks
Automation in travel management assures you of a better experience as you plan business trips. Whether individual users or a travel desk, you can choose from numerous flight options, travel times, flights, and accommodations. This enhances the travel experience and ensures that the finance teams can view and work on data quickly and effectively.
4. Lowers your error rates
Manual tasks must be eliminated, whether in a small, medium-sized, or large company. They are not only time-taking but most certainly lead to errors.
Automated travel management systems can be built to include your travel policies, removing mistakes and other issues that may be caused due to human involvement.
5. Insightful analytics
If anything concerns your finance team, it is probably the visibility of funds. With an automated travel management system, you can set budgets based on better forecasts (data from employee travel) and get a clear picture of your travel expenses as you can access real-time data.
Also, Read: A Guide to Expense Reimbursement Claims
How to choose the best travel management software?
Depending on your company’s requirements, even the best corporate travel booking software must have certain features. Here are some essential things to look for:
1. User-friendly Interface
First and foremost, you must remember that your employees will use the travel management tool. Therefore, travel management tools must be interactive, intuitive, and user-friendly.
2. Integration
While most travel management software platforms offer users great features and exceptional advantages, the software must work well with your existing ERP, HRMS, or CRM systems. If so, your transition to an automated system will be easier and more seamless.
3. Customization
Finally, what’s important is that the software you choose must be built to suit your needs and requirements. Travel and expense policies are unique to companies, and these requirements must be inbuilt into the system so your employees can make their travel plans while staying compliant.
4. Features
The features of a travel management software system can vary on several factors. However, irrespective of the size of the firm or budget, there are some essential features you must consider.
For instance, sit down with the vendors so you are clear about how the new software will integrate with your existing systems. Learn how long it will take to set up the software, and whether you will have to bear the costs of setting it up.
5. Customer Support
Make sure your vendor offers customer support as you may need them at some point in the future. You may need to assess the quality of such support by looking at reviews of the software.
6. Mobile Compatibility
Rarely does anyone step out of the house without a mobile device? Understandably, your employees will appreciate the convenience that comes with such facilities. So, ask your vendor about the capabilities of the mobile interface.
7. Pricing
Finally, and most importantly, pricing is an important consideration. Talk to a couple of different vendors to assess if you are getting the best possible deal out there.
Quick Read: What is a Travel and Expense Report?
How much does travel management software cost?
The cost of travel management software can range based on whether you pick a per-trip pricing plan or a monthly subscription that gives you access to multiple features.
The charges per trip prices could range from $5 to $10 approximately. On the other hand, monthly charges could start from $99 and go on to $300. These numbers are again based on approximates which could vary from vendor to vendor.
Why Happay is the best travel management software for corporate booking?
With over two million plus users, spread across twenty countries, Happay is the fastest-growing organization to offer a complete, integrated travel and expense management solution.
Their mobile-first platform supported by AI capabilities offers state-of-the-art travel and expense tools that completely automate travel and expense processes, eliminate expense fraud, drive 100% policy compliance, and improve visibility.
The tools offer a great employee experience along with flawless integrations with multiple ERPs and HRMS.
To learn more about how Happay can help you, schedule a demo with us.
Travel Management Software – FAQs
A software that gives users the convenience of planning and booking their business trips ultimately from one platform is called travel management software.
There are trial versions of many travel management software that you may download. However, free versions will not give you the entire experience as they are limited in terms of time or features.
Essentially used for business travel, employees of a company that uses such software or an app may plan their entire business trip without needing a travel agent, desk, or other specialists.
Essentially designed for travel agents or large tour operators, the software can help develop group price quotes that may be shared with travelers. They could also create multiple packages and payment options.
Also known as corporate travel providers, travel management companies manage business travel planning for individuals and organizations.
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