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3 Tips for Reducing Your Company’s Travel Expenses

Author: Amitava Sarkar
by Amitava Sarkar
Posted: Mar 24, 2015

After all is said and done, your first foray into the world of entrepreneurship has been fairly successful. Having educated yourself on the tenets of prosperous small businesses and recruited a highly-skilled staff, your success hasn’t come as much of a surprise. As someone who’s aspired to own her own business for most of her adult life, you made sure to do your homework before declaring your company open for business. Now that you’ve acquired a reputation for doing jobs on time and on-budget, your client base has expanded exponentially. In addition, not all of these new clients are local.

Having clients across the country entails a fair amount of business travel. Seldom does a week go by in which multiple employees aren’t jet-setting around the nation and meeting with customers. The sole downside to all these business trips is the enormous travel expenses your workers have accrued. All too often, your team members return from their trips with stacks of expensive receipts. Fortunately, there are numerous ways to reduce your company’s travel expenses while still ensuring that your employees travel in comfort and style.

Rent Corporate Housing Units

If there’s a certain locale your employees visit on a consistent basis, you can save a substantial sum on lodgings by renting corporate housing units. These units are only available to registered businesses and are essentially fully-furnished apartments that are accessible to your employees whenever they need them. The billing process varies from company to company, but most corporate housing complexes allow clients to pay their rent on a monthly or annual basis. If your staff members travel to a city or township more than four or five times per month, you’re sure to find that corporate housing units are a better deal than hotel visits.

Cap Employee Travel Budgets

Many companies essentially give business travelers a blank check whenever they set off on a trip. As long as employees collect their receipts and bring them home, they’ll be reimbursed for any expenses they accrued during their travels. While very generous, this type of policy often leads to frivolous spending on the part of travelers. To encourage your staff to keep their spending in check, put a cap on employee travel budgets. With this in mind, make a point of allotting your team members enough money for comfy lodgings and decent meals – but require them to cover anything beyond that.

Reduce the Length of Trips

Although some companies provide business travelers with one or two flex days per trip, this can lead to a number of unnecessary expenses. To prevent this type of fiduciary wastefulness, require your employees to fly home the day they finish their business. In instances where this isn’t possible, require them to come home the day after their business is complete. Certain employees may not be happy with this arrangement, but it will go a long way in reducing your company’s travel expenses.

Managing a small business is a difficult road, fraught with countless challenges. Instead of allowing exorbitant travel expenses to compound your stress levels, why not take measures to keep those expenses under control? By renting company apartments, capping travel budgets and reducing the length of trips, you can make out-of-control business travel expenses a thing of the past.

About the Author: Bethany Jansen is a former graphic designer who owns and operates a Philadelphia-based web design company. Since her employees regularly travel to Northern California, she recently rented corporate apartment units in Sacramento and Stockton from Suite Accommodations. Small business owners interested in learning more about customizable suite accommodations are urged to visit the company’s website.

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Online Article Marketing Specialist.

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Author: Amitava Sarkar

Amitava Sarkar

Member since: Nov 27, 2014
Published articles: 349

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