Business travel is essential to the success of a company. Traveling to meet clients and colleagues around the country and sometimes even the world can mean a lot of planning and managing potential expenses. Not only do you need the trip to run smoothly, but you also need to ensure that the plan suits your companies cash flow. Having a business travel management plan can help you to manage costs incurred when T for business reasons, helping you to eliminate some of the stress! If you’re interested in how to expense business travel, read on to find out how.

What You Can Claim For  

When it comes to managing business expenses, it is helpful to know what you’re able to claim back money from. Expenses are the costs incurred by an individual when carrying out their role as set out by the company. It means that an individual should not be gaining from the expense claimed. Examples of things you can claim include the cost of travel, train tickets or hotel, the cost of food and drink consumed, and any other costs that cropped up because you were traveling.

How This Can Be Paid

There are two main ways in which business travel can be paid for. The first is with a company credit card. This makes handling expenses simple and straightforward when traveling and is also useful to be able to keep track of how much is being spent. The second is paying with personal cards and claiming expenses. This is slightly more time-consuming. Using this method means that spending is harder to track and account for and it can also mean a lot of time spent reimbursing employees.

Calculate Your Trip

Recording everything you pay for on a business trip can help when it comes to tracking expenses. Rather than just splitting your records or spreadsheet up into food and travel, being aware of extra costs will help to track spending more accurately. Knowing what your employees are having to spend money on when they’re traveling will help you to decide which trips are financially viable and which are not regarding travel costs and hotel expenses. It can also help you to decide if your business needs to adapt its policy to decide if certain expenses are necessary. Keeping track of travel expenses can get confusing, and if it is a necessity for your business, looking at using a travel management company could also prove beneficial.

Lowering the Cost

If you’re a small business, travel expenses may make a dent in your finances. If business travel is a necessity, there are a few things you could look at to reduce the cost, such as deciding if it is necessary that you stay overnight or if you could get a train back instead. Making use of public transport instead of using taxis and making sure you’re up to speed on recovering your tax will all help when covering the cost of traveling for work.