Late November of this year the Government established a new SmartPay program, which is a primary method of payment for travel. This new program GSA SmartPay 2, is accompanied with various improvements, enhancements, benefits, and protection for the government agencies and its travelers.
The Government partnered with several contractors (financial agencies) to take on this new endeavor. Some of these financial agencies were part of the first SmartPay program and one of its major partners, Bank of America, failed to submit a proposal to continue business with the government.
While reading this particular section I was curious of the reason/s why Bank of America decided to depart from this enormous program.
Some of the most important improvements established for this new program are: the new card image with anti-misuse/abuse features, automatic e-mails to supervisor when card used, and streamlined procurement process. In my opinion, many times employee travelers highly misuse the company’s funds for personal use and can be hard to detect. With the automatic e-mail notification enhancement, this will provide the supervisor track of the employee’s expense transactions and prevent employee from spending on personal expenses. The streamlined procurement process will be extremely helpful when reconciling bills. This is one of the major headaches for organizations – reconciling travel expenses.
The SmartPay 2 program benefits the government and the traveler as well; offering magnificent enhancements, benefits and major improvements. With the government spending millions on employee travel expenses, a program of high caliber as this one was needed.
by Ana Ferrara