Whether you’re a small business owner or an enterprise “numbers person,” you're likely keeping a close eye on every expense, especially during uncertain economic times. Business travel reimbursements can be a significant outgoing cost, but they are often necessary for growth and client relationships.
The good news is there are several effective strategies to reduce travel costs without hindering your business objectives. Let's explore seven expense management tips to help you save.
Tip 1: Check in on your business travel reimbursement policy
Review your current travel and reimbursement policies to identify cost-saving measures. Some of these might include:
- Setting spending limits on flights and hotels
- Requiring employees to book accommodations and airfare in advance for better rates
- Encouraging more regional and local travel, which tends to be easier on company books
- Prioritizing cost-effective transportation options (e.g. driving or ground transit instead of air travel)
- Switching from per-diem to invoice-required accountable plans
Be sure to clearly communicate any new guidelines to your employees and be prepared to answer questions about travel and mileage reimbursements.
Tip 2: Reduce travel costs through corporate travel programs
With international and nation-wide travel becoming increasingly complex, now is the time to get to know your local and state providers. If your business involves frequent travel to specific locations or using particular hotel chains or car rental companies, explore the possibility of negotiating corporate rates.
Many airlines also offer discounted pricing for businesses with consistent travel needs. Encourage employees to enroll in loyalty programs to earn points and rewards that can be used for future business travel.
- Negotiate or re-negotiate corporate rates with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies
- Focus on partnering with providers in frequently visited regions
- Ask employees to enroll in loyalty programs for future savings
Tip 3: Leverage technology to save on business travel
The days of scrolling through hotel options on Google are thankfully behind us. There are many tools, including AI agents that can help you reduce travel costs.
- Use online travel comparison websites and AI search to find the most cost-effective flights, hotels, and rental cars.
- Try to be flexible with travel dates and times, since prices can fluctuate significantly based on demand. Ask an AI agent when the best time to travel is to your business destination.
- Consider budget airlines and accommodations where appropriate, without compromising employee safety and comfort.
Tip 4: Implement more robust expense management
Effective expense management is crucial for controlling travel costs.
- Require accurate mileage tracking for any business drives taken in a personal car.
- Ask employees to confirm travel plans and anticipated expenses with their manager before making a purchase.
- Implement a clear process for submitting and approving business travel reimbursements with proper documentation, including receipts and employee mileage logs.
- Flag inappropriate spending as soon as possible and make sure employees are adhering to any new policies.
- Implement more robust expense-tracking software, ideally one that’s capable of providing mileage reports and a place to share receipts for tolls and parking fees.
Tip 5: Prioritize essential travel
Make sure your employees are making the most of every business travel opportunity — whether that’s connecting with a new client or attending a learning event in-person.
- Focus on travel that directly impacts revenue generation, key client relationships, or critical business operations.
- Consider smaller-scale, regional meet-ups that employees can drive to from home instead of spending on air travel.
- Delay or cancel non-essential trips to reduce travel costs significantly.
- Consider virtual meetings and collaboration tools for lower-priority operations, like continued education.
Tip 6: Automate! (always the best mileage tracking tip)
How you’re tracking employee mileage and reimbursements can make all the difference for your budget.
Pen & paper, a spreadsheet, and a form all share the same Achilles' heel — they rely on employees to provide you with accurate information. Which makes them manual employee mileage logs and thus prone to errors which lead to over-reimbursement.
- #1 mileage tracking tip: Use an automatic mileage tracker that can log drives without requiring extra work from employees — usually an app.
- Make sure employees feel comfortable using automatic tracking. For example, MileIQ only includes drives eligible for business mileage reimbursement in reports. Drives marked as personal are never shown.
- Focus on intuitive, easy mileage trackers that don’t require onboarding. Drivers using MileIQ are usually ready to track drives minutes after downloading the app.
Tip 7: Lean into your reporting tools
You don’t know what you don’t know, as the saying goes. Tracking your business travel reimbursements consistently can prevent any unpleasant surprises during budget meetings.
- Use an expense tracking platform that can send weekly and monthly IRS-compliant reports automatically — so you can catch patterns before they affect the big picture.
- Automate report reminders so employees never forget to submit expenses. MileIQ lets drivers send mileage reports automatically every week at the same time.
- Make sure you can verify expenses, including business drives, easily. For example, our admins see exact addresses their employees visited on reports along with a map of the route taken for every drive.
Next steps: Try MileIQ for Teams today!
Want to check off some items on this list in the next few minutes? Easy. Try MileIQ for Teams Pro and start saving with:
- Automatic mileage tracking (no more manual employee mileage logs!)
- Automated reports and report reminders
- Tax-compliant drive data that’s easy to verify at a glance
For many companies, travel will always be a part of doing business, so learning how to spend smarter now could help your team reduce travel costs no matter what the rest of the economy is doing.
Embracing technology like MileIQ for automatic mileage tracking and focusing on smart expense management tips will contribute to a healthier bottom line and greater financial stability.
