A Guide to Corporate Booking Tools

Online Booking Platforms

The main feature of a corporate booking tool is the online booking system. It should offer:

• An easy-to-use interface for straightforward booking.
• Availabilities in numerous travel services like flights, hotels, and transportation.
• Choices to make bookings that align with the company's travel rules and budget.

An efficient online booking system can cover all your booking requirements. It can save users' time and lower stress levels by avoiding the need to use several different tools and services.

Integration with Expense Tracking Systems

For a smooth travel management process, it's vital to connect with expense tracking systems. This should include:

• Automatically moving booking information into expense reports.
• Easy monitoring of spending compared to the budget.
• Giving managers and finance teams immediate access to travel expense details.

These combinations minimise mistakes from typing data by hand and offer a clear, combined look at costs. This is crucial for efficient expense handling and tracking.

Reporting and Analytics Capabilities

Understanding and managing your travel costs is crucial, and it can be made easier with corporate booking tools. You should choose tools with:

• Detailed dashboards showing crucial data and patterns.
• The function to create customisable reports when needed.
• Information on how money is spent and adherence to policies.

Businesses can make smart choices using current data, improve travel rules, and save more, with enhanced reporting capabilities. It can help businesses not only conserve resources but also make travel more enjoyable for their workers.

Assessing Your Company's Needs

Understanding your company's exact travel management needs is crucial before exploring available options. You can start by looking at how many of your employees often travel, the frequency they travel, and whether their trips are domestic or international. Also, identify the common problems they encounter during travels. 

Essential features your management tool should have may include managing travel plans, real-time travel updates, the ability to work with other management tools, and ensuring travel policy adherence. It can also be useful to get insights from employees who travel a lot and travel managers in your company to identify specific requirements for the tool.

Budget Considerations

Prices for business booking tools can differ greatly. You should craft a budget that includes not just the upfront costs, but ongoing costs like subscription fees, upkeep, and possible updates. Look at various tools to find the one that gives the most bang for your buck while still fitting into your budget. Try to find adaptable solutions that can expand with your company's growth to prevent the need for frequent platform switches, which can be expensive and disruptive.

User-friendly Interface

The right company booking tool is easy to use, which makes people like it more and use it often. Pick ones that are simple to go through, even for people who aren't great with technology. A good tool lets you book easily, find trip options quickly, and manage your bookings without complications. Being able to use it on your mobile device is important since many employees need to arrange their travel while they're out and about. The best company booking tool also has strong customer service to help with any problems.

Lack of customisation options

It's a big mistake to pick a business booking tool without customisation features. Your company is one-of-a-kind and your booking tool should match its special needs. You should be able to personalise areas like fields, reports, and workflows to suit your company's rules and travel needs.

Ignoring integration capabilities

Be sure not to overlook the ability of your corporate booking tool to merge with your existing systems, like HRMS, expense tool, and travel policies. It's important for a quality booking platform to blend smoothly with your current systems. This way, you can simplify the whole process, avoid repeating data entry, and make travel booking and expense tracking more manageable for your employees.

Overlooking mobile accessibility

In today's business environment, a mobile-friendly booking tool is essential. Employees should be able to book from anywhere without needing a desktop computer. Make sure you pick a tool with an easy-to-use mobile app or a device-optimiesd website.

Neglecting user experience

User experience is essential for any software tool's success. Ignoring it can annoy users, reduce usage, and waste money. Choose a booking tool with a simple and clear layout and straightforward navigation, and needs just a few clicks to book something. A user-friendly tool can save time and make users happier.

Underestimating data security

As cybersecurity threats are rising, it's really important to focus on data security when picking a business booking tool. You should check that the tool you choose sticks to the leading standards in the industry and meets all the rules for data protection. Keep an eye out for features such as safe data transfer, encryption, and frequent software updates to safeguard sensitive data.

Failing to consider scalability

Choosing a booking tool that can adapt to your business growth is crucial. If you ignore this, you might end up spending lots of money and time shifting to a new system later on. So, select a booking tool that fits your current needs and can adjust as your business grows.

Employee Training and Onboarding

Training and getting used to a new tool are crucial to get the most out of it. It's helpful to make detailed training plans for different teams in the company, like travellers, office workers, and managers. These plans should include not just how to use the tool but also how to find and make sense of important information for planning trips and managing expenses. Don't forget to have regular training and update courses to keep up with any changes to the tool or travel rules.

Compliance with Company Travel Policies

A corporate booking tool's main job is to make sure all bookings stick to the company's travel rules. You can tweak its settings to block bookings that break these rules. Such rules could cap spending, specify travel class, or list allowed travel partners. Keep reminding users of these rules on the booking platform to ensure they follow them. Also, connecting the tool to other systems that monitor compliance can make audits and reports much smoother.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Checking how well the new company booking tool works is necessary; keep a constant eye on it. Track items like lowered travel costs, how many people are using it, and if it's saving time on booking. Evaluate these regularly to see how the tool is doing and where changes are needed. Ask users for their thoughts to understand their experience and problems they might have. Based on this feedback, adjust processes accordingly and work with the tool's provider if needed to make it fit your business needs better.