Travel and expense management with Volopay and TruTrip
Volopay and TruTrip’s strategic partnership is helping countless organizations streamline their corporate travel and expense management process.
This integration is beneficial for employees to have the freedom of choosing suitable travel and lodging options for themselves while still giving the employer control over their budget and compliance with company policies.
What is a business travel management platform?
A business travel management platform is one that helps organizations access, book, and manage travel arrangements for all their corporate travel requirements.
These platforms offer your company a lot of flexibility in terms of which employees can make travel expenses while still following the T&E policies of the company.
TruTrip is a travel management software based in Singapore that was founded in 2019. The brand blends modern travel technology with South East Asia’s travel ecosystem to give customers an affordable and simple-to-use solution in the form of a travel and expense management software.
The platform is made to help businesses improve their travel expense reporting and its management through automated processes and expense reporting that ultimately leads to better efficiency.
Different types of business travel expenses
Among the different types of business travel expenses, some of the most common ones included in corporate travel management are commute/transportation expenses, accommodation expenses, meals & drink expenses, incidental expenses, and venue expenses.
• Transportation expenses include any form of transportation such as flights, trains, buses, taxis, etc. that is needed to get from one place to another for business purposes.
• Accommodation expenses are those that are incurred in hotels or resorts for employees to stay during their business travel.
• Meal and drink expenses that occurred during the course of business travel fall under a company's travel expenditure.
• Incidental expenses include non-recurring or one-time expenses that may be incurred by employees such as entertainment expenses.
• Business travel often occurs in order to hold an in-person seminar or meeting amongst many business stakeholders for which a venue has to be booked. So the cost of renting a conference room or bigger venue to host an event might also fall under travel expenses.
Challenges of corporate travel management
1. Expense reporting
If your company does not use travel management software, chances are that there is a lack of visibility when it comes to corporate spending for making travel arrangements.
Managers or employees end up booking through different platforms that are convenient for them and might often forget to save receipts and invoices for the same.
This makes it difficult to track and compile all the travel expenses that were made by employees on behalf of the company.
TruTrip and Volopay solve this problem for corporates by giving all employees access to a variety of travel arrangements to choose from a single platform and pay for the same using your company’s Volopay account balance so that all expenses are made and tracked in real-time.
2. Policy compliance
Another pain point that companies face while trying to make their travel and expense management easier for their employees is the lack of control.
Each company sets its own T&E spend policies for all members to follow so that budgets are kept in check.
But the more free rein you give your employees to choose the type of travel and accommodation they want, the more chances there are of expense policies not being followed.
To combat this, a travel expense management system like TruTrip lets its users set up custom travel policies and approval workflows that employees of your company have to adhere to while making travel arrangements.
3. Reimbursements
A big challenge and something that most companies have accepted as the norm is the process of filing reimbursements for the travel expenses that are made.
But there is a better way to track, manage, and control corporate travel expenses without employees having to file reimbursement claims.
This is where Volopay comes in with its corporate cards and Bill pay balance; every travel arrangement being made on TruTrip can be paid using your company's Volopay bill pay account or a corporate card so that employees are not making any out-of-pocket expenses.
Given that Volopay allows your company to issue corporate cards for all employees, even if someone is to make a tertiary expense such as meal and drinks outside the TruTrip platform, they can simply use their corporate card to pay for it and the expenses will be available to you on the Volopay dashboard.
How does the travel management platform work?
A travel management platform in a nutshell should help companies book, track, and analyze their business travel and related expenses.
TruTrip was made keeping in mind the requirements corporate organizations have when it comes to travel.
The platform gives business leaders and people managers all the necessary tools to control travel expenses with the ability to automate certain processes that save a lot of time and bring costs down.
The platform is filled with options fitting all budgets. This gives businesses small or big the chance to experience business travel management with policy compliance, automated processes, finance management, travel programs, and a complete ecosystem to handle corporate travel.
Why automation is crucial?
A lot of time is spent by managers reviewing and approving different travel requests from employees. While it is an important task, automation can speed up the process and maintain the same level of control.
TruTrip offers its users automation in the form of easy-to-use policy controls and automated workflows.
So every time an employee makes a booking request on the platform, rather than manually going through every detail of the request, you will see a tag that will tell you whether the request abides by your travel policy or not helping you approve requests quicker.
Check out our article on corporate travel policy best practices to get an idea on some of the best practices that can help you control business expenses and also allow you to keep your employees informed about the T&E expenses.
Integrate business travel spending with a smart travel management solution
Corporate travel management has two important aspects that any business has to consider; the ‘travel management’ part and the ‘expense management’ part.
Both these elements go hand in hand as the financials of your company play a major role in the travel expense management system that you build.
This is why Volopay and TruTrip have enabled a collaborative integration between our platforms to help customers get the best of travel and expense management.
Different subscription features available
TruTrip offers the following plans to its customers with different functionalities. You should choose according to your corporate travel needs.
Essentials
The Essentials plan offered by TruTrip is suited for businesses who are getting started on building their travel management system and want to explore platforms to see whether it is the right fit for them.
Within this plan, you get access to view and book all available fares present on the platform. You can manage trips and make bookings for up to 25 users*(seats). The platform in this plan will show you 12 months of travel history to get a picture of how your team is traveling.
You can also set up custom travel policies, manage exceptions, view flight information, stack air miles, and get many other benefits.
Each employee also gets a secure traveler profile. So as a manager, you can book for yourself or others and quickly pay for travel arrangements with various payment options including your Volopay account.
Standard
In addition to all the features available in the Essentials plan, the Standard plan lets you create unlimited policies and groups for better data management, access for up to 500 users*(seats), view of your travel history for 36 months, and commission-free bookings for private hotels and fares.
The platform provides travel risk insights and alerts to make sound travel decisions for yourself and company employees.
You also get access to their App Store which lets you integrate with other products you use to meet business objectives.
For corporate travel of a higher magnitude, it is not always possible to debit money; so with their standard plan, TruTrip offers a credit line and invoice payments that are subject to credit checks.
Lastly, your company gets a dedicated success manager, a lead travel agent, and a personalized help center for your company to solve any problems or queries you might have.
Enterprise
The Enterprise TruTrip plan is made for extremely frequent business travelers.
The plan includes everything you get in the Standard plan along with no administration charges throughout their app store, no modification or cancellation fees, the ability to add your own private fares without any commission, and up to 1.5% cashback on trips that qualify.
You also get customized monthly reports for all your travel, priority access to new applications, and you get to be a part of the product roadmap group to ensure that the product is delivering your needs and building in the right direction.
Easy integration setup process
Using corporate travel through Volopay and TruTrip’s integration is very easy. TruTrip is already present on an admin Volopay account.
You must simply navigate your Volopay dashboard and go to the ‘Travel’ tab. Click on the ‘Activate Corporate Travel’ button.
This creates your company’s account with TruTrip.
1. Select an appropriate plan
The next step is to select the appropriate plan as per your business travel needs between Essential, Standard, or Enterprise.
2. Set up your company settings
Then you must head over to the company settings in TruTrip and all the necessary information such as your billing information, office address, and payment method.
3. Adding your payment method
When setting up the payment method for your company, you will notice that you also get the option to select Volopay.
What is a T&E policy and why you should automate it
A T&E policy is an important part of business travel management and stands for ‘travel and expense policy.’
Each company has its own unique T&E policy as per its financial capabilities and requirements. It includes rules and guidelines to be followed by employees when making travel arrangements.
Managers often have to spend a lot of time approving travel expense requests from employees. This time can be saved by creating custom T&E policy rules on platforms like TruTrip that helps a manager instantly see whether a travel booking request from an employee adheres to the policy or not.
This helps in faster approvals and rectifications if the requests don’t meet policy expectations.
Take control of your travel & expense management process
TruTrip’s platform enables a company to take control of its travel and expense management process with the help of custom policies, approval workflows, and the ability to set user groups.
1. Set up your users and user groups
As an admin, you can add multiple users to the TruTrip platform as per your plan and create user groups and segregate them depending on their teams or respective departments.
This will help you further create unique policies for them to abide by on the platform.
2. Set your travel policies
A travel policy in TruTrip allows you to set various compliance parameters such as safety and budget controls based on which an employee can make travel bookings.
If needed you can also create multiple policies for users or user groups depending on the plan you have.
3. Creating the approval process
Once you have onboarded your users, made the user groups, and created the travel policies, you can now set up the approval process depending on your company’s hierarchy.
This will let employees easily make travel requests and managers promptly approve them thanks to automated detection of whether a travel request complies with the user's respective travel policy or not.
Switch to a cost-effective system to manage your business travel expenses
A big part of corporate travel management is travel expense reporting.
Travel is no small expense even if it is not done frequently. So it becomes important to manage budgets for such business trips and maintain financial efficiency.
The integration between Volopay and TruTrip helps you do just that by making travel booking and expense reporting an efficient process.
TruTrip offers a host of travel and accommodation arrangements for business travelers.
From flights, trains, buses, cabs or taxis, concierge services, airport shuttles, hotels, resorts, and so much more! Depending on the region you are in South East Asia, you will find the best prices and suitable booking options with necessary filters.
Manage all your business bookings & expenses on a single platform
1. Payment methods available
When you use TruTrip through Volopay, you get the option to quickly pay for travel expenses using your Volopay account using Bill pay or use our corporate cards.
No matter which payment method in Volopay you use, all expenses will be accurately tracked so that they can be categorized for accounting purposes.
2. All-round travel portal
TruTrip is the one and only platform you will need to make and manage travel bookings for all your employees.
TruTrip also manages hotels, interstate travel/cabs, concierge services, and more. This means that all T&E spends are also accounted for within the Volopay ledger.
3. Reconcile expense reports in no time
Not only does TruTrip show you a travel history for all your company members letting you track travel arrangements, but you can also see the expenses made within the respective Volopay dashboard.
4. Save time and pre-approve bookings
Admins have the ability to approve bookings in advance through TruTrip by setting parameters. So when an employee makes a travel request, if the details match the pre-approval criteria, then the request will be automatically approved.
5. Ensuring travel expense policy compliance
Using the custom travel policy settings, you can control what types of bookings can be made and ensure that costs are not exceeding the budget that has been set for business travel.
Interesting read: 5 best expense management software in 2023
Travel and expense management best practices
A good corporate travel management system is one that has the flexibility to let your employees book a host of different travel options while still ensuring T&E policy compliance.
Using the TruTrip integration within Volopay helps you do just that.
Other best practices or features you should keep in mind when choosing a travel management software include.
• Availability of different travel options
• Multiple payment options
• Custom T&E policy creation
• Access to multiple users/employees
• Accurate travel history
How Volopay’s travel expense integration helps your business save more?
Avail a free plan to use TruTrip
You don’t have to pay the platform a single penny to start using it. Their Essentials plan is completely free and comes with basic functionalities that allow a user to test out the platform.
You can change this plan anytime you want and upgrade to a better one with more features if required.
Payments directly through multi-currency wallet
TruTrip’s integration with Volopay makes it perfect as a travel expense management system because you get to use Volopay’s multi-currency wallet and pay in regional currencies to avoid currency conversion charges.
Not only does this save the company a lot of money over time but also helps you track regional expenses in real-time using Volopay.
Cumulative savings in the long run
When you use Volopay’s bill pay feature to pay for trips on TruTrip, you save remittance fees that you would have otherwise incurred while using another payment method like a card.
The charges or fees might be small but they add up to a hefty amount over time.
Interesting read: Payroll in Singapore: A comprehensive guide for businesses