Previous blogs discussed how to get a handle on T&E expenses. Now that you know what you are spending these dollars on, how can you determine if it is money well spent? Equally as important, how you can these expenses be controlled.
If you are tracking expenses by project and activities you should be able to now see the full costs of these projects, not just the salary costs. It may bring to light efforts that really are not as profitable as they may have seemed.
Do you have a lot of expenses for hotel or car rentals? Perhaps you could you benefit by getting corporate contracts with hotels or car rental agencies? This is especially true if you travel often to the same client or location.
Are there expenses that should be restricted either by amount or frequency. This can be handled by a good corporate policy. Often this is a delicate balance between too restrictive and too lax. This generally is adjusted until a happy medium is found.
Are your people doing a lot of traveling for meetings? Does your company have a virtual meeting platform? More and more virtual meetings are taking the place of face to face meetings. Most applications support video, desktop sharing and VOIP. It is just like being there but without the travel hassles!
Do you have a lot of phone expenses? You may benefit from having a corporate cellular plan. Many companies offer free calls within the network. If you have international travel some wireless plans allow for adding international coverage for a week or two. You can give them the start date and end date at the same time so you do not have to remember to remove the option. If you have frequent international travel it may make sense to just sign up for the plan and leave it in place.
Finally, does your company spend too much time reporting, approving and reimbursing these expenses. Estimates have been as high as $50 per expense report. If you do not have an automated process in place there are lots to choose from. Many are web based on a subscription basis. After you have spent the time to understand what your T&E expenses are you can better evaluate the options and choose the one that addresses your particular pain points.
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