Control, policy compliance and data reporting are among the top benefits of payment and expense management systems for travel management programs. Yet, the majority of travel buyers surveyed weren't directly involved in managing them for their organizations.
Forty-one percent of the 294 respondents said they were directly involved with their organizations' commercial card programs. The percentage spiked to more than 50 percent for buyers in certain subsets, such as those reporting to finance (64 percent), procurement/purchasing/sourcing (53 percent), in the pharma sector (63 percent), manufacturing (53 percent), or those employed by a company with more than 55,000 employees (55 percent) or annual travel and entertainment spend of $60 million or more.
However, 30 percent of respondents said they were "indirectly involved" with their organizations' card programs and about one-quarter were not involved at all. About 5 percent of respondents--most often with small companies with less than $5 million in annual T&E--said their organizations didn't have a card program.
Of those not managing the corporate card program, just 8 percent expected to gain that responsibility and 21 percent thought they "should be involved."
Slightly more than one-quarter of the respondents were directly involved in their organizations' expense reporting systems. About half were only indirectly involved, 23 percent were not involved at all and 2 percent said their organizations didn't even have such a system.
Not surprisingly, buyers who worked in finance were the most likely to be involved in expense reporting systems. Amongst this group, 47 percent were directly involved in managing expense solutions. About one-third of the respondents who said they had annual T&E spend of less than $30 million also said they were involved in expense reporting systems.
The responses appear to belie emerging supplier strategies to integrate booking, expense and card systems, and streamline the processes, data and controls for organizations, travel buyers and travelers. Only a few vendors have developed their own booking through expense systems, but dozens have announced partnerships to deliver such integrated solutions. Banks recently began offering their payment customers proprietary expense reporting systems.
Advisory Board Co. travel buyer Steven Mandelbaum sought a payment provider that could match itinerary data with corporate card charges to deliver enriched data to his company's Rearden Expense application and ease reconciliation for travelers. The information systems managing director, who also manages travel and expense, developed his own weekly charge statements using feeds from BMO Spend & Payment Solutions.
Meanwhile, lack of involvement in payment solutions could be at odds with the implications of the U.S. Department of Justice's proposed antitrust settlement with MasterCard and Visa over merchant acceptance rules, said AirPlus International president Richard Crum. If the settlement is approved, travel buyers next year will need to consider how much the various forms of payment will cost them, not just the benefits of card programs. "It's a game changer" for buyers, Crum said.
The proposed settlement, according to DOJ, requires MasterCard and Visa to allow their merchants to "offer consumers an immediate discount or rebate, or a free or discounted product or service for using a particular credit card network, low-cost card within that network or other form of payment; express a preference for use of a particular card"; and communicate to consumers the cost incurred by the merchant to accept the card. DOJ in early October sued American Express in a civil antitrust suit, but Amex vowed to fight the government's allegations that its rules are anticompetitive.