The fact that corporate budgets are not unlimited needs no great elaboration: whether you are an entrepreneur or running a department and dealing with staff business trips, you certainly know this very well. Thanks to the Expert Business Advice website, we have prepared a few tips that should help you reduce your travel costs. In the previous part of our two-part series, we focused on the costs associated with transportation. Today’s article rounds off the topic and adds the following tips:
Expenditure on food
If you are staying somewhere for more than two nights, find out if the hotel also offers rooms with private kitchen facilities, or at least a refrigerator. You can prepare some meals yourself instead of eating in expensive restaurants.
If, however, you plan running around meetings on a daily basis and will have no time or energy for your own culinary arts, then take continental breakfasts, which are offered by a large majority of hotels. But avoid the use of hotel services and incurring other extra charges.
Unify travel plans
If you are a business owner or head of department, do not let your employees create their own itinerary, otherwise you will lose track. In the case of regular trips to the same destination, you can use the services of specialised agencies that will find you the best services to meet your needs.
If possible, ensure that all appointments and meetings are held at the same place. You will thus avoid exorbitant costs for expensive restaurants, cafes and other items chosen by your employees.
Set a policy for business trips
Travel policy is a very important tool that helps employees to understand the expectations and restrictions regarding their trips away from headquarters. Once you have established fixed rules about what is and what is not possible when they are away on business, then there is no reason to deal with extra expenses and face questions.
Establish clear spending limits
When people are using their own money, they think much more about how and on what they spend it. Make sure your employees have their appetites under control and treat the corporate budget as if it were their own money. In extreme cases, it is possible to set daily spending limits for food (or an upper limit for each meal, including tax), car and hotel and have employees honestly record these costs on a standard form.
Use corporate payment cards and loyalty programmes
Keeping travel expenses within one account will greatly facilitate book-keeping and, of course, subsequent checking. In addition, during regular trips try to sign into all possible programmes for loyal customers that will save you further expenses for accommodation, travel and food.
Probably not every tip that we have offered you is useful for your needs; nonetheless, we believe that the overall list provides an option to streamline expenditure on travelling. Would you suggest any other tips?
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