How to send employees on business trips without paperwork: personal experience

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We tell you about the main problems with business travel and explain how you can solve them.

Problem # 1. Sluggish approval system

Each trip is a bunch of correspondence in which I act as an intermediary. It takes a lot of time to send messages, besides there is a chance to get confused and make mistakes, especially when several people are flying.

Once I misunderstood an employee and agreed a ticket for the wrong flight. It was non-refundable, so the company had to spend money on a second ticket, with the correct date, and lose about 10 thousand rubles.

How to solve the problem

Short: automate the process.

Services for online booking of trips cope with this task - I tested it. It can be used to plan business trips, buy air and train tickets, and book hotels. You do not need to pay for connecting and using the service.

The service can be used not only by the head and office manager, but also by all employees of the company. There is no limit on the number of users, so I immediately uploaded the data of all the guys who go on business trips to the Lifehacker's profile on OneTwoTrip for Business. You can add it manually or from XLS and CSV files. To do this, in the "Employees" section there is an "Import" button.

When adding a user, you can immediately enter the data of Russian and foreign passports, so as not to clog them every time anew.

For each employee, you can set a travel limit and restrict access rights. For example, set a limit for one order and select a hotel up to three stars. When an employee leaves, their profile is blocked. He will not be able to enter his personal account, but the whole history and reporting on him will remain.

This greatly simplified my work: an employee can log into his personal account with his password, select the desired flight and hotel and book them without paying. To agree on tickets, you do not need to send screenshots to Telegram: the director, as an administrator, sees the reservations and orders of all employees in the "Orders" section.

Problem # 2. High costs

We try to plan trips in advance in order to buy tickets cheaper. True, this does not always work out.

How to solve the problem

Short: save on tickets and hotels by purchasing them through the online travel service.

OneTwoTrip for Business guarantees that air tickets for company representatives cost the same or cheaper than for individuals.

Savings are achieved through high turnover and direct contracting with airlines and hotels.

The site offers about 2 million accommodation options for different budgets: hotels, apartments, hostels. More than 1,000 of the most popular ones have their own relationships with OneTwoTrip for Business. If the object the client needs is not in the system, the service can conclude a contract with it upon request.

If the plans are confirmed and the trip is approved, tickets can be bought in two clicks. If not, just cancel your reservation. All airline loyalty cards are valid, so you can continue to accumulate miles. The service arranges promotions with banks: for example, it can return cashback with bonuses for purchases with a corporate card.

Problem # 3. Long ticketing and billing

When the tickets and hotel have been agreed with the manager, I contact the airline and the hotel to receive an invoice for payment. Each organization has its own payment rules for legal entities: somewhere you need to write to e-mail, somewhere you need to fill out an Excel file with company details, somewhere - a form on the website. It happened that I had to repeatedly call the hotline to get documents. It takes a lot of time, and ticket issuance sometimes takes several days. Some companies do not issue invoices to legal entities at all. In such cases, you have to give up the purchase and look for another flight or hotel.

How to solve the problem

Short:pay for tickets and the hotel with one invoice on the website of the service for organizing business trips.

On OneTwoTrip for Business, I and other employees who have appropriate access can book and pay for tickets and hotels as easily as individuals. The whole process takes 2-3 minutes: you enter your personal account, fill in the date and destination and select the desired flight. You do not need to enter passport data and bonus card number, they will be loaded automatically when you select an employee from the list.

In addition, you can create a complex itinerary or organize your trip more flexibly. For example, fly one day with different airlines: in the morning from Ulyanovsk to Moscow with Aeroflot, and in the evening back with Pobeda. This is allowed because the online service can "glue" tickets from different airlines in one order. If you organize your trip yourself, in this case, it would take more time: correspondence with two airlines, two invoices for payment, twice as many closing documents.

You can pay for tickets and the hotel in two ways: with a deposit and using a corporate bank card. I use a deposit - it needs to be replenished in advance for any amount by invoicing from the "Account" section. The purchase takes place immediately, and not only during bank opening hours.

For any problem, you can contact the service support team. She works around the clock and will provide assistance, even if force majeure occurs in the evening or on weekends.

Problem No. 4. Closing documents

The business trip does not end with the purchase of tickets and hotel reservations. Much more effort is needed to prepare the closing documents. They must be requested separately from the airline and the hotel, which send them exclusively in paper form. Often, items do not arrive by mail and are lost. This is revealed during the reporting period, so you have to urgently look for the contact of someone who can duplicate the closing documents.

How to solve the problem

Short:entrust the formation of closing documents OneTwoTrip for Business.

In OneTwoTrip for Business with invoices and reports, everything is much simpler. Every month we receive an act for all services and an invoice for hotels with VAT, every quarter - a reconciliation act. All invoices and reports are stored in the "Documents" section. You can configure which of the employees has access to them - secretary, accountant, manager. Documents have no limitation on the storage period in your personal account and are available at any time.

What is the bottom line

Organization of business trips through saves money and time. The service allows you to:

• refuse long correspondence with airlines and hotels;
• coordinate trips directly with the head;
• book the most profitable flight and accommodation options;
• issue tickets and the hotel in 2-3 minutes in one place;
• pay for tickets without waiting for the invoice;
• simplify the preparation and storage of closing documents.