Faced with rising travel expenses, chief financial officers and finance execs are growing ever more aware of travel costs and policy compliance, according to an America Express survey of financial executives at more than 250 companies, mostly in the midmarket category.
While travel managers for years have worked diligently to monitor travel spend and boost traveler compliance, higher-ups also are taking notice, as 63 percent said they are reviewing T&E costs more closely. Anre Williams, U.S. commercial card executive vice president at American Express, said that while Sarbanes-Oxley is spurring growing awareness of policy compliance and spend, growing corporate oversight goes beyond a single law. "From our conversations with clients, they're becoming increasingly concerned about compliance in a number of different areas," Williams said. "It's not just larger corporate governance like Sarbanes-Oxley. They want to make sure they're being good corporate citizens, whether they're public or private."
Another driver for the growing interest among senior managers is growing travel costs. Although about 10 percent of financial executives said costs would decline and 33 percent expect T&E to be flat next year, 47 percent of the those polled said next year will bring up to a 10 percent increase in travel costs and another 9 percent said that increase would be more than 10 percent. "Some of that is coming from cost increase-we do expect increases globally for airfares and hotels. Additionally, we're expecting transactions to increase," Williams said, citing Amex's 2006 travel forecast
(BTN, Oct. 31).
When asked about the most "burning issue impacting finance executives" next year, 30 percent noted Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, 20 percent said expense scrutiny and 19 percent noted such spending policies as "establishing clear rules, getting endorsement by senior management and continually communicating policy to all employees."