As today’s business world utilizes travel in ways never seen before, you as a business owner must put in place a travel policy that employees must abide by. Failure to have one of these travel policies in place can result in expense report abuse, as well as fraud. However, businesses with travel policies are still suffering from fraudulent behavior. Why is that? It’s because business owners fail to update and regular review their travel policies.

When was the last time that you actually sat down and reviewed your travel policy? With the world constantly changing, so should your travel policy. Having an extremely strict policy can provide major and unnecessary headaches to your regular traveling employees. On the other hand, an extremely vague policy can result in employee spending sprees!

The Importance Of Travel Polices

As the business world continues to change and grow each year, it’s important that you review your travel policies on an annual basis. By doing so, you can make sure certain rules don’t inhibit your dedicated employees and that certain regulations are met to prevent different types of overspending. Here are some things to consider when updating your travel policy.

While it can’t control the behavior of your employees, a travel policy will provide a lot of clarity for your employees and create a set of guidelines which your workers can follow. Make sure that you go over every possible procedure that can occur on a business trip, whether it’s reserving a rental car or booking an airline. For example, do you want your employee to purchase the lowest fare ticket possible, or are they allowed to pay for first class? Situations like this, among many others, need to be clearly communicated and documented into your travel policy. That way, tracking expense reports can be much easier for you and your finance department.

Preventing Any Scams From Occurring

When creating or editing a travel policy, make sure that you as a business owner set up ways to prevent your employees from taking advantage of your company. As new forms of technology are created, the chances of your employees manipulating your travel policies increases. For example, there are websites out there which allow people to generate fake receipts! On top of that, it can be difficult to prove whether or not the receipt is real because as an employer, you are not allowed to request an employee’s personal credit card statement.

Review Your Travel Policy Constantly

In conclusion, as a business owner, you need to be on top of important aspects of your business, such as travel. Disregarding this aspect of your business can result in major drops in profit. Make sure to review your travel policy as much as you can to ensure that the system works for your best employees and prevents any bad ones from abusing it. You can make your life even easier by implementing an automated expense system into your company. That way, your expense reports can be reviewed and checked without any human error. These are all ways to ensure a healthy travel policy for your company.