Booking Partners offer a range of account management services from Corporate Business Travel Rate Negotiation to Travel Management Information to our Billback Service and Travel Policy Control.

It's easy for businesses to get caught up in spending time trying to keep on top of travel information and expenses, which is never an easy task. By working with a dedicated travel account manager you can free up your time and make savings. Read on to find out more about what Booking Partners can offer your business in terms of travel management.

Corporate Business Travel Rate Negotiation

In the case of travel rate negotiation we take away the stress of having to find the right hotels to meet your exact requirements and negotiate with them for accommodation. If you're putting together an event or conference we'll find the best venue by taking into account your audience, location and requirements and will find the perfect match at the best prices.

To do this we'll look at your current travel expenditure costs - what you've spent in the past on hotel rooms, what subsistence levels you have set and what expenses you allow.

We will then work with you to define a travel policy (see travel policy control below) and to develop a dedicated selection of hotels and venues that will ensure you have the best options and value for money available to you on your business travels.

Corporate Business Travel Management Information

In order to fully understand, scrutinise and control all aspects of your travel expenditure you need to be able to collect and analyse information on how your travel budget is being spent - where the money is going and where your largest expenditures are. This will then highlight where cost savings are being made or can be made and will also allow you to look at the compliance of your expenditure with your travel policy.

If you don't collect and analyse past and present travel bookings information you won't be able to make good decisions about whether your travel expenditure is giving value for money or a good ROI.

Businesses need to have this information so it can be measured and improvements made where required. By consolidating all your travel spend through one corporate travel agency; allowing you to fully understand and manage your company's travel expenditure, it's easy to see what you need to focus on to make savings.

Travel expenditure information is just like any other information within your company, it needs to be reviewed and approved, after all you wouldn't ignore sales figures or profit reports, so give travel reports the same respect.

Booking Partners can provide you with bespoke management information allowing you to fully understand and manage your company's travel expenditure through detailed reports which provide analysis into your travel management processes.

Billback Service

One of the biggest bugbears many companies have is the process of having to collect, store and manage invoices from all business travel. One of the main issues many businesses have - when it comes to staff submitting travel expenditure reports often hotel receipts or bills go missing or can't be found.

This makes the process of managing invoices time consuming and labour intensive, especially when there are a large volume of invoices that need to be processed.

The Booking Partners billback service can help with this. So what is "billback"?

Billback is a way of allowing a traveller to stay at a hotel and not have to pay his hotel bill on departure. Instead Booking Partners will pay your hotel bills and then provide you with a single, combined invoice so you don't have to worry about each individual bill. This can be done because we will agree a list of allowable charges with you, and an allowance of a nominated amount in advance of any travel.

In this way businesses can spend less time chasing down receipts and invoices and spend more time focussing on their business.

Travel Policy Control

Your business travel policy allows you as a business to determine and define what you will allow in terms of travel costs and will help ensure consistency across hotel and conference bookings. It's the foundation upon which your business travel is built. It will also help you make cost savings and manage travel risks.

Putting together a travel policy needn't be difficult - there are templates that can get you started, simply Google "e;business travel policy template"e;.

Your travel policy should consist of:

• a description of the process your staff should follow each and every time they need to book a hotel or travel to a conference.
• the details of the trip e.g. the purpose of their travel, if attending an event - the name of the event, where the event will take place, the dates, the department to which the trip will be charged and an estimated total cost.
• a list of what you consider to be acceptable and non-acceptable expenses and what expenses require a receipt e.g. you may require receipts for all expenses or only expenses over a set amount.
• an acceptable daily allowance to cover meals, tips, taxis, phone calls, parking etc.

Or if you'd prefer, Booking Partners can work with you to help define a travel policy which can then be implemented across your company to maximise the efficiency of all hotel and conference bookings. By utilising your travel policy we can also help to ensure policy compliance.

Find out more about our corporate account services by contacting us to discuss travel rate negotiation, travel management information, billback services and travel policy control.