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Manage travel and expenses overview

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Applies to: Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Human Resources, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

This article describes the business process area of travel and expense management (T&E). This process tracks the money that employees spend when they incur expenses for your business. Managing travel and expenses is crucial for any organization. It involves documenting and processing all business-related costs that employees incur so that you can report taxes, ensure budget compliance, track business intelligence, and manage the employee experience.

As a part of this process, organizations often define expense policies and automate the reimbursement of travel expenses. They define if employees charge expenses to a corporate credit card, spend cash from a cash advance, or incur out-of-pocket expenses that the organization then reimburses. The process of travel and expense (T&E) management can be complex and involves accurately gathering and recording all travel-related expenses. When you apply the right technology, it can augment expense management by storing payment method information and importing credit card transactions. This way, it helps facilitating the use of travel requisitions to review and authorize expenses before they incur.

Organizations should consider implementing technology to augment their policies for managing travel and expense when they face challenges in the T&E management process. Common challenges include the following list:

  • Time-consuming review and approval of expense reports
  • Errors in manual data entry
  • Lack of visibility into travel and expense data

Implementing technology can help organizations overcome these challenges and streamline the T&E management process. For example, expense management software with image-scanning technology can help finance teams scan receipts, extract crucial data, and autofill digital expense reports. Such software can help the organization reduce the risk of errors and make the process faster.

Stakeholders

Many people across the organization should contribute to the decision-making process and design of the Manage travel and expenses area. The following list provides examples of such stakeholders:

  • Management: Roles such as finance managers, CEOs, COOs, and various line managers are integral in creating and adjusting policies for meetings, travels, and expenses that align with business needs. Their input is essential to optimize operational efficiency and manage relationships with employees, customers, vendors, and even preferred travel vendors. Frontline supervisors can be crucial in the review and approval process of travel and expenses.

  • Employees: Employees are stakeholders in the travel and expense process, as they incur expenses for your business and are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of their records. Clear communication and enforcement of policies are vital to their effective engagement in these processes.

  • Human resources: HR managers and HR specialists and similar roles are crucial to involve in defining and managing travel and expense policies, ensuring alignment with HR guidelines and regulations. They play a key role in shaping policies that reflect the organization's culture and compliance requirements.

  • Project managers: In the context of Dynamics 365 Project Operations and service-based organizations, project managers play key roles by overseeing the integration of expense data with project records, and they manage any team activities that result from travel. They ensure that project schedules align with the availability of resources. They can be crucial in the review and approval process of travel and expenses.

  • Compliance officers: Compliance officers are responsible for ensuring that the organization adheres to relevant regulations and standards. They use the system to monitor and report on compliance, track regulatory changes, and make necessary adjustments to policies and procedures to maintain legal and ethical compliance.

Manage travel and expenses process flow

The following diagram illustrates the Manage travel and expenses business process area.

Flow diagram with steps for the process that is explained further in the next paragraphs.

  1. Start

  2. Hire to retire

  3. Onboard and manage the employee lifecycle

    1. Manage travel and expenses

      1. Establish expense reporting policies

        Parallel connections to Make a request to travel, Request a cash advance, and Create and submit expense reports.

      2. Make a request to travel

      3. Request a cash advance

      4. Create and submit expense reports

        A parallel connection from the upstream Project to profit end-to-end business process also connects to 3.a.ii, 3.a.iii, and 3.a.iv.

      5. Review and approve expense reports

      6. Audit expense reports to find anomalies

      7. Pay expense reports

      8. Report and analyze on expense reports

  4. Parallel connections are shown between the downstream processes Order to cash, Project to profit, Service to cash, and Record to report.

  5. End

Manage travel and expenses benefits

There are many key benefits that an organization can realize by effectively and efficiently managing business processes for travels and other expenses. Implementing technology to support the Manage travel and expenses business process area can help organizations realize these benefits. The following section outlines the key benefits that an organization might monitor and measure for managing travel and expenses.

Enhance expense control and efficiency

By using travel and expense management systems, an organization can enhance expense control and efficiency. These systems can give companies unparalleled insight into their spending patterns, allowing them to keep track of expenses in real time. By knowing what's going on, businesses can make informed decisions, maximize budgets, and negotiate better deals with suppliers.

Streamline expense reporting and approvals

Implementing an internal policy for travel and expenses and executing it efficiently brings benefits to businesses of all sizes and industries. A well-written and governed T&E policy clearly defines what qualifies as essential employee spending and helps finance teams streamline expense reporting and approvals. When an organization automates the T&E process, finance teams can save time and effort in processing and approving expenses, which improves productivity.

Maintain a data trail for audits

By keeping track of all travel-related expenses, an organization can maintain a data trail that can help keep the business tax-compliant and ready for audits.

Prevent expense fraud

When the organization has a well-defined travel management strategy with supporting technology, it can examine expense patterns and maintain an organized record of travel-related receipts. These steps help the organization prevent expense fraud.

Drive organizational health and business stability

T&E management can help drive organizational health and business stability by ensuring that all expenses are accurately recorded and approved. Employees can have a better experience in submitting and tracking their expenses. They can build customer relationships by traveling to meet with clients and partners.

Next steps

If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to assist with your Manage travel and expenses business processes, you can use the following resources and steps to learn more. (Links are added, when articles are ready.)

  1. Plan and recruit your workforce

  2. Plan and recruit your workforce

  3. Onboard and manage the employee lifecycle

  4. Manage occupational health and safety

  5. Manage employee performance and growth

  6. Manage employee time and attendance

  7. Manage travel and expenses (the article that you're currently reading)

  8. Manage employee benefits and compensation

You can use the following resources to learn more about the Manage travel and expenses process in Dynamics 365.

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.

Principal author: