Mobile Apps Can Make Travel Expense Management Easier

While travel expense management may be a challenge, mobile technology is changing the process for the better. Workers are able to use smartphones and tablets for all their business travel needs, from booking to record-keeping, and it's led to an increase in productivity in the workplace. Not everyone is reserving their travel on mobile devices, but according to Travel Daily News, mobile sites are at the very least a reliable way to find information.

Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Best Western, explained the rise in mobile travel sites to the news source. "While mobile is being used as an information source, it's not necessarily a transaction source yet," Dowling said

"The information-gathering stage for business travelers continues to escalate, and all travel providers need to provide powerful content on the web for them to best make their travel decisions." Mobile apps have a number of uses besides booking travel, according to The Globe and Mail. For instance, smartphones can be used to keep logs of miles traveled and to collect receipts from travel expenses.

Travel expense management software has proven immensely useful for all businesses - and it's not just on personal computers anymore, either. Devices are becoming more powerful than ever before.

Luxury Business Travels on the Trend

A number of regular business travelers seem to have been charging more than ever to their expense reports for air travel. Recent air traffic figures provided by the International Air Transit Association and reported by Buying Business Travel detail how the demand for premium air travel increased throughout 2013. Considering figures from December 2013, the IATA found that premium travel numbers were up 5.5 percent year-over-year.

The report noted that the growth in premium travel reflects overall improvements in the business environment. The news outlet reported that the figures suggest economic confidence is on the rise across both Europe and the United States.

With automated expense reporting technology, many businesses are able to better track their traveling employees spending - and thus, keep the spending to a minimum. However, there are many other ways that business travelers are working to keep their expenses down, even as they indulge in luxuries such as high-class air travel.

For example, a recent UnitedVoice post hosted by Forbes detailed how many business travelers now build their own customized business travel experiences, which may help to explain the increase in luxury travel. The report went onto detail how "gamification" - the process of rewarding travelers with points, loyalty bonuses and more - has become a core strategy among many businesses and travelers.

"Younger travelers are so incredibly comfortable with the concept of gaming that you now have a large traveling portion of the workforce that fully understands the concept of rewards and badges," explained Will Tate, senior vice president of travel management consultancy Management Alternatives. "This might be that bridge. If we work with gamification, we might be able to create a new and different way to combat the personalization and consumerization that [employees] experience when they travel."

The report went on to detail how cutting-edge expense management systems were now allowing travelers to better comply with company travel policies. It was noted that some businesses even offer rewards and incentives to those who follow the policy strictly. Further, it noted that corporate travel experts testify that better compliance in regards to company policy can lower travel costs by up to 20 percent per employee per business trip.

Business Traveling made Easy

In most firms business traveling is one of the most important part of the any business are the business travel meeting with the other people in the business world is essential and a plus factor in your firm and knowing more knowledge about business. If you are planning for a business travel make sure that you must be ready for it. Traveling is fun and exciting but together with the work it is just like you must need to have a full focus and time to take an adjustment with it. Preparing for a business travel is one of the first step that you must need to do and securing an airline ticket for the day of your departure. Since you have so many things that are need to prepare for your travel hassles in getting an airline ticket may occur. Eliminate the delay in your business travel with the Certify online travel booking sites.

Here's how it works: Certify LoginFirst: Log into Certify Login to Certify on your computer, tablet or smartphone and click the Travel tab. The system knows who you are and also knows your travel preferences, travel history, airfare credits, payment method and company or role-based policies.

Certify Travel SearchSecond: Enter Travel Details Select which type of travel booking you are searching for, flight, hotel, rental car or any combination of the three. Enter the dates of travel and preferred vendor and see the approved choices appear on your screen in seconds.

Certify Travel BookingThird: Make a Selection & Book Make selections and your trip is booked, in about a minute flat. Furthermore, when the booking is complete you and your manager receive a pre-trip notification email containing the details of your travel booking. Change your mind? No problem. You've got 24 hours from the time of booking to make a change or cancel the trip in Certify, without any haggling or penalties.

Awesome factor: Once an employee books the trip in Certify, the system automatically creates an expense report. On the road, she can submit receipts for meals and other incidentals in a few seconds using her smartphone. Back in the office, the expense report is automatically created and she can submit the report in the exact format that accounting needs.

Revealing the Top Business Travel Places

Today most of the business leaders are getting careful about the things or plans that they will gonna implemented in their company but somehow if you have seen the economy of the country it will directly affects to the company status. It is likely that most of the business company today are willing to spend more or increase their expenses for the betterment or for the improvement of the firm.

To obtain the goal of getting more into the businesses that they have the best thing to do is making more business travels for the expand of your business in meeting with the other people and for the reach out of your company's products.

The United States The USA still remains the world's largest market for business travel. Figures cited by Forbes and obtained by the GBTA state that more than $262 billion was recorded in business spending in 2012, up over $4 billion from the year before.

China China, however, is quickly catching up to America in terms of business travel expenditures. There was approximately $196 billion in travel expenses logged in China last year - illustrating a year-over-year improvement of over 13 percent. The news source suggests that China is expected to surpass the U.S. in business travel expenditures sometime in the next five years.

Japan Japan ranks as the third largest business travel hub in the world, though it's recorded expenditures remain a mere fraction of those reported in China and the United States. The report found that roughly $65 billion was spent on business travel in Japan last year, which is down 1.2 percent year-over-year.

Germany The fourth most prominent destination for business travel is Germany, clocking in with $50.5 billion in travel expenditures during 2012. That's made for an increase of 1.1 percent.

United Kingdom The U.K. ranked fifth in the rankings, with just over $40 billion spent on travel during 2012. That figure is relatively unchanged when compared with statistics from the year prior.

Yet while the U.K. didn't see an increase, the world of business travel did. Businesses owners know that by branching out and embracing globalization, they can increase their profit margins - and they're taking action.