Traveling for business can be tiring, especially when you have to keep track of your expenses by saving receipts and entering them into your records later. It can also be challenging for controllers and travel managers, who must ensure that employees book within the policy guidelines, monitor their expenses, and keep an eye on the overall travel and expense budget.
Business travelers and colleagues can now rely on AI and automation to simplify tedious tasks. The conversation around AI and ML (especially generative AI) has centered mainly on trip planning and personalization. This is unsurprising since consumer travel companies have utilized AI for years to provide personalized recommendations.
But the benefits of AI and automation for business travel extend far beyond just the planning stage. Besides, the best-laid plans of humans or generative AI often go awry. Ask anyone who’s ever missed a connecting flight because their first plane was delayed or fought their way across town only to find that the famous local restaurant is closed on Mondays even though Google says it’s open.
Fewer conversations revolve around using AI and automation to improve travel experiences and operational productivity during and after the trip. That’s what we aim to do here.
For companies seeking to enhance the caliber of their business travel programs, AI and automation offer an excellent solution. By incorporating a few straightforward AI tools and strategies, which you may have already utilized in other financial procedures, corporate travel can become a much more pleasant experience.
Vendor fare and employee spend analytics
Data is king in the digital age, and travel managers can rule with it. When traveling, employees leave a dense trail of data from various sources: hotel reservations, rideshare apps, customer service contact centers, and even restaurants. All of this data makes a healthy meal for AI.
AI-powered software with optical character recognition (OCR) can scan receipts and invoices, extract key information, and enter it into T&E systems. When an employee takes a picture of a receipt, AI can leverage the metadata captured in the photo to validate the time, date, and location of the purchase.
Finance software equipped with ML and AI algorithms can then detect spending anomalies, flag potential fraud, and provide unprecedented analytics on airline and hotel pricing.
One global law firm headquartered in the US is experimenting with a new AI software module to flag excessive expenditures based on norms for particular regions, purchase categories, and market fluctuations.
Robert Kugel, senior vice president, and research director at Ventana Research, describes the AI-powered module as such: “The system knows that a hotel room in a certain part of a city on certain days of the week should have been $400, not $800,” said Kugel. “It can check to see whether a fare is reasonable and if contracts with travel vendors are being enforced.”
Kugel predicts this type of AI will be “pervasive” in the next couple of years.
Automated expense tracking
Don’t assign any more valuable human talent hours to mundane tasks like handling employee travel expenses when AI is more than up to the job. Automation blows through the multi-step drudgery of verifying charges, reconciling receipts, and tracking down approvals.
“Automating our AP and expense management processes has had a dramatic effect on the productivity of our finance department,” says the assistant controller at the aforementioned law firm. “Previously, these functions were decentralized. Now, our AP and expense management processes are in the cloud. People can enter expenses, track invoices, and generate reports from anywhere. Automated routing ensures that all approvals are obtained before employees and vendors are paid.”
The law firm’s finance team previously used Microsoft Excel to track employee expenses, a “macro-driven” system with little automation involved. Under the old process, receipts were attached to a hardcopy cover sheet, then routed to approvers in multiple offices, with very little transparency into approvals.
The new automated process allows employees to input their expenses through a web browser or mobile app. They use their smartphone cameras to scan receipts and automatically upload them while they’re on the go.
Virtual corporate cards
We wouldn’t think of virtual cards as AI. Strictly speaking, they’re not, but there’s automation working behind them.
Since virtual cards capture expense details at the point of transaction, syncing them with AI-powered AP and spend management software allows for seamless invoice and instant expense reconciliation. Purchases feed directly into the accounting systems for finance teams to review, simplifying T&E management with an immediate productivity impact.
With virtual corporate cards, finance teams set spending limits for particular trips, time periods, and vendors. This helps organizations monitor and control employee expenses more closely. They take the guesswork out of policy compliance for the employee — since pre-approved spending rules, vendors, and travel contracts are automatically enforced — and take the burden of correction off human auditors.
Virtual cards make spending easier for the employee, too. They’re accepted in stores or online, and are as easy to use as Apple Pay or Google Pay — which minimizes the risk of lost or stolen cards. Best of all, employees don’t have to foot the bill for expenses or re-enter information on an expense report.
“Employees appreciate the convenience [of virtual cards], because they don’t have to use their personal cards and then wait weeks for reimbursements,” says Kevin Permenter, research director of financial applications at Needham, Mass.-based International Data Corporation.
AI and automation ensure smooth trips and easy cost control
AI and automation are the modern company’s best hope for improving business travel, from the employee experience to backend processes. AI is revolutionizing corporate travel programs, from analytics that enable finance professionals to make data-driven pricing decisions to virtual cards that deliver convenience and control.
The next time employees embark on a business trip, let AI do the hard work, ensuring a seamless journey from start to finish.
For more insights on how automating repetitive tasks empowers finance teams to focus on strategic initiatives, read the latest briefing paper from Harvard Business Review: Empowering Finance Teams to Become Leaders of Data-Driven Business