Seize The Spend, maximizing card usage improves data. The more spending we capture through our SmartPay Card Program, the better the data and reconciliation with greater benefits.
What are the traits of high-spend capture organizations? Companies that capture at least 75 percent of travel and entertainment spending on a corporate card is good but not excellent.
The lower capture group is mainly looking at reconciliation processing, a basic utilization of card data in the managed corporate program. ACTE and Citi recommended the following tactics to capture the largest possible portion of T&E spending on cards:
- Secure a senior management champion with influence across the enterprise to sponsor the program and communicate the policy. **We at the Galley have our Chief of Administrative Services Division solely control and manage our Travel Card Program.
- Define and communicate a standard expense policy with stated consequences for noncompliance. **A mandate to use IBA travel cards on all travel related expenses is a part of National Gallery of Art travel policy
- Implement a T&E program with the traveler at its center that provides consistent and supported experiences.**Flexibility to accommodate unique and individual travel most especially with art couriers are tested and true to experience.
- Continuously communicate the benefits the T&E program brings to all stakeholders. **Our chief emphasizes the enhanced safety and security aspect that the T&E card usage brings in cases of crisis management, as well as the savings accrued to the company and travelers. All these are related to everyone that attends our Travel and Reimbursement Training given every other month to Travel Planners and IBA card holders.
- Use expense policy noncompliance as an opportunity to communicate the programs’ benefits to employees.
- Prescribe a preemptive process for travelers to follow in cases where card acceptance is low, such as with restaurant charges.
- Integrate T&E cards with other travel tools to increase seamlessness for travelers.
- Use providers’ analytic tools and consultative services
- Work with providers’ merchant acquisition processes to increase merchant acceptance among your program’s heavier-spend vendors
Article conducted by Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) and Citi is an excerpt from “Travel Procurement” – The Source for Managed Travel Insight February 2012 issue
By: Joy Borja
Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency