are using invoices now are probably always going to, usually because corporate cards don’t fit into the culture or the processes,” says Amex’s Gillies.
Billback is not quite dead though. “There
remains a need for it, largely where non- employees are concerned,” says Tom Stone. The use of apps in expense management is also growing – not surprisingly, given that research from Phocuswright in 2013 found that 92 per cent of business travellers owned a smartphone and more than 60 per cent owned a tablet.
CARD TRICKS Compliance also continues to exercise the minds of travel managers, and gamifica- tion is making its way into the corporate card field, where companies are creating competitions between employees to win rewards in return for conforming to policy. This is a creative and successful alterna- tive to mandating, which does not suit all company cultures. And a trend that remains unchanged
is the polarisation of opinion concerning individual or central payment of cards. “We have an individual bill programme, where the invoice or statement is de- livered to the cardholder and it is their responsibility to pay that off,” says Citi’s Salmon. “It encourages them to submit expenses and receipts more promptly.” However, typical of the centrally billed and paid approach are lodge cards. “I see a place for the centrally billed air account for some years yet, not least because com- panies hesitate to ask employees to put £3,000-worth of air travel on an individual card,” says Alan Gillies. Among Barclaycard’s customers,
central settling is the norm and in sectors such as retail, where there are not many employees travelling, a lodge card proves useful for ad hoc travel.
END-TO-END SOLUTIONS Although end-to-end expense man- agement has long been held up as the holy grail of corporate T&E, it is still only aspirational for many travel managers. There are numerous reasons for this: “It is too big a sale across the whole business. It means talking to travel
8 BBT CORPORATE CARDS SUPPLEMENT 2015
“The corporate card should be the payment mechanism for everything”
about the booking tool, finance for the payment solution and expense manage- ment system, plus procurement and HR,” says Maria Parpou. “The vast majority of companies have an existing system and try to integrate tools into it.” One leading professional services firm has a travel programme in the UK that does not yet include end-to-end expense management, although it does have feeds into the system in the US. However, says its business travel manager, “it is in the pipeline and we are implementing a system”.
However, it is no easy task. Data security and fear of fraud, and getting consensus between procurement and finance on potential return on invest- ment, are two further barriers to total automation. Compatibility of technol- ogy, which used to be a stumbling block, applies less these days, especially with internet-based software. “The decision is whether to change to something more slick and up-to-date, or plug away with an old system because it’s too difficult or expensive to change,” says Mastercard’s Martin Chapman. But according to BAML, there is no
one provider to iron out the dissonances. “While there isn’t a single, robust end- to-end solution provider that can address all aspects of business travel – booking, expense management, reconciliation – there are a variety of specialist providers, whose tools can integrate with other leading solutions to offer a seamless experience to the corporate traveller,” says Melissa Gargagliano. Robert Daykin is a veteran travel
Airline payments
A CHANGE IN THE INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION (IATA) billing and settlement plan (BSP) may drive businesses to introduce card programmes. “Next year, BSP is going to fortnightly payment, and customers who were paying us monthly are going to do so every two weeks, which is quite tricky for them administratively,” says Adam Knights, managing director of ATPI. “If they want 30 days’ minimum process-
ing, they are going to need to go on a card programme,” he says. “We are seeing an uptick in card programmes for air travel, and that’s as a direct result of BSP going two-weekly. It has been weekly in the US and fortnightly in the rest of Europe for a while. The change in the UK has been prompted by travel agency failures in the leisure sector, leaving airlines liable.”
buyer, and director of Corporate Travel Partners, a consultancy and outsourced travel management specialist. He says the ideal approach for implementing an end-to-end corporate card programme is to start at the general ledger (GL) and work backwards, rather than starting with the travel management company (TMC) and working forward. “The GL is where the real numbers
lie,” he says. “Then bolt on to the GL an expense management module, which becomes the data warehouse.” The corporate card “should be the
payment mechanism for everything”, he adds – details of which are automatically downloaded into the expense module, which sits on the individual’s profile at the TMC or anywhere else the company might be buying travel. He acknowledges the investment cost
to set up a programme, and the ongoing costs to run it. “But it will be a darned site cheaper than the way organisations are currently doing it, and it will provide better controls and bring about behav- ioural change,” he says. “Good practice delivers the goods.”
In association with
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36