Integrated Travel & Expense (T&E)

T&E stands for travel and expense — a collective term used to refer to businesses’ major operational costs for travel and related expenditures. Essentially, T&E refers to any expense an employee incurs while working away from the office, such as traveling for business or entertaining a client. These can include items such as the cost of transportation, lodging, and meals.

According to a study by Concur, T&E expenses typically comprise 10% of a company’s budget, making it one of their most significant expenses.

T&E expenditures can directly impact profitability as too much spending can increase costs significantly, which minimizes profits earned. For companies looking to set limitations on travel spending, corporate travel consultants suggest developing a T&E policy is the best solution. To ensure maximum spending efficiency, T&E policies regulate how company funds are utilized on business trips and other business-related expenses.

T&E reports are essential for keeping track of travel-related spending. Unfortunately, most companies are under the assumption that their T&E spending is already within reason, and there is no other way to reduce expenses.

T&E reporting requires employees to present proof of purchases that must also be filed within a specific timeline as outlined in the T&E policy. With a T&E reporting process in place, companies can take a closer look at spending, spot duplicate invoices, locate discrepancies, identify fraudulent spending, and reduce overall T&E expenses by as much as 20%.

Expense management is a comprehensive process that keeps track of employee travel expenditures when traveling internationally, domestically, or even on a one-day trip. This system also applies to the stipulations under the company’s T&E policies and procedures used to control employee spending.

In travel and expense management, companies can monitor how company funds are utilized and help employees reimburse out-of-pocket expenses during the said trip. However, due to of the comprehensive nature of the practice, most companies view expense management as laborious and frustrating. Nevertheless, it still plays a crucial role in maintaining the company’s bottom line.

A company’s expense management practices and systems directly impact its bottom line. A smooth-flowing expense management process offers direct insight into a company’s financial health, helping identify redundancies, fraudulent behavior, or various cost-saving opportunities. In addition, detailed record-keeping can improve transparency and traceability, significantly lowering reimbursement cycles and offering tax benefits for staying efficient and remaining compliant.

Yes, companies can actually keep track of their T&E expenses manually, either through a paper filing system or a spreadsheet. However, it is a painstaking process that is not only time-consuming but also inefficient and prone to errors.

Keeping track of employee expenses means having to keep track of outgoing payments, sales receipts, invoices, and other financial documents, which require a manual filing system to organize. However, maintaining this filing system can take longer, especially when tracking urgent documents.

Moving away from a manual filing system to an automated expense reporting solution can dramatically improve an organization’s efficiency and overall financial performance. An automated filing and reporting system inside travel and expenses software can simplify all facets of the expense management process, from the pre-trip approval phase to reporting and analysis.

Within this system, all travel and expense requests can be filed electronically and can be approved or disapproved quicker through the same channels. This type of software makes expense reports easier to generate, given that all information is readily available in the database.

An integrated T&E solution like CI Azumano Business Travel creates a single source of accurate information, ensuring efficient storage and retrieval of all relevant information for expense management. Its travel and expenses software contains a unified database that allows accountants and financial analysts to monitor how company funds are utilized, providing key insight into preferred suppliers and driving significant savings.

By improving traceability and transparency, an integrated expense management platform improves the overall speed and efficiency of the management process, ensuring shorter timelines and driving employee satisfaction.

CI Azumano Business Travel is a powerful tool that provides seamless T&E tracking and reporting solutions for integrated travel for Fortune 1000 companies, hospitals, academic institutions, and the U.S. Government.

CI Azumano Business Travel offers seamless integration across critical aspects of T&E planning, delivering enhanced expense management capabilities through the following features:

Quick assessment of travel requests for faster approval.

Round-the-clock booking of travel itineraries through Concur Travel, a corporate travel agency, or other travel consulting services.

Easy filing of expense reports using any device.

Faster approval of travel and reimbursement requests with a single click.

Generate reports for expenses, offering complete visibility over the entire process.