Introduction

Every business trip starts with planning and booking, and ends once all business travel expenses are reimbursed. The intricate details that occur between planning and reimbursement present an opportunity for companies to enforce compliance of travel and expense policies in order to maximize savings. Travel is one of the highest single expenditures for companies, which is why it’s one of the largest opportunities for savings. Travel and Expense Management (TEM) solutions work to streamline the entire process, providing an end-to-end solution from pre-trip approval and online booking to travel receipt capture and expense reimbursements, while ensuring corporate travel compliance is strictly adhered to.

This annual PayStream Advisors Travel and Expense Management Benchmark report provides a comparative look at the past two years and reveals TEM trends, as identified by finance and accounting professionals throughout the U.S. Consistent with the 2012 Travel and Expense Management Benchmark report, the use of TEM solutions continues to increase. Thirty-six percent of survey respondents report that their T&E process is fully automated and is a single/integrated system, up 4 percent from 2012. This is a modest increase compared to the 9 percent increase in companies that reported they fully automated their T&E process from 2011 to 2012.

Nearly 60 percent of survey respondent’s reports an increase in T&E spend over the past three years. This accounts for the increase in the number of expense reports that an organization processes per month. PayStream analysts attribute
the increase in T&E spend and the increase in expense reports to the increase in the number of companies planning to implement an automated solution within the next 6 months.

More companies are exploring integrated travel and expense systems to make booking a business trip and completing an expense report a seamless operation for their employees, while ensuring that employees book travel with preferred vendors and abide by company specific policies. The market for travel and expense management solutions is estimated at approximately $49 billion. PayStream predicts demand is growing and is likely to expand at a compound average annual growth rate of 7 percent, due to a combination of economic growth and increased penetration.