Concur today is unveiling new expense reporting functionality for tracking and reporting ancillary airline fees, essentially automating several manual workarounds some travel buyers already have deployed to monitor and report this growing air spend category.
Though corporate card data for the most part do not differentiate between airfares and other air fees, to buyers' consternation
(BTNonline, April 12), Concur created new logic that separates air expenses less than a pre-determined dollar threshold—$100, say. Travelers filling out expense reports then can identify those charges as one of six fee types, including baggage, on-board expenses and upgrades. "There's also policy that can be attached to it, so that maybe baggage fees are allowed but airline clubs are not," said Concur senior director of analytics and travel supplier relations Ellen Trotochaud.
As airlines work with credit card companies to provide more detailed data—identifying, for example, if a fee is for a bag or an upgrade—Trotochaud said Concur would work to make use of that data and automate further. "The reality is, it's still developing," said Trotochaud. "We're working with our credit card partners to really be able to identify where in the credit card transaction we can get consistent information around types of fees. That's still being established and there are some cards and airlines that are better than others, but there's still not a real strong consistency. We wanted to get started anyway, because we have enough to at least start developing a platform. As the industry evolves and we have more standards, we'll be prepared to turn those on."
The new expense functionality is the basis for reports Concur now will enable, Trotochaud said, breaking out the percentage of air spending on ancillary fees, per-traveler expenditure in each ancillary category and other configurable data streams. "There are three predefined reports in our system to get them started, but they can drill in and do a lot more reporting depending on what their needs are," she said.
Trotochaud said the new capabilities are available to all Concur's expense clients. "This is a critical part of spend management, so it's part of our core product now," she said. "It's just a matter whether you turn it on."