Expense management provider Emburse launched a booking platform for small businesses that is integrated with its expense tools and allows users to generate virtual and physical payment cards, the company announced Wednesday.
Dubbed Tallie Travel, the platform's booking component is powered by travel management company Amtrav's homegrown booking tool, according to Emburse. Booking data flows into Tallie in real time, according to Emburse, and the virtual or physical cards generated through Tallie can include restrictions on acceptable spending levels and categories.
"There's increased demand for more tightly integrated expense-payment-travel solutions," said Emburse head of corporate strategy and business development Omar Qari. "With Tallie Travel plus Tallie Expense, this is part of our response to that. Providing this more tightly integrated solution is what the market is looking for, especially in the lower end."
User companies would purchase from Emburse bundles of bookings that travelers could then use to book via Tallie, Qari said.
The move allows Emburse to deliver via Amtrav duty-of-care solutions to a segment of the market that doesn't often have fully managed travel programs, Qari said.
"Historically, a lot of our customers for the Tallie solution are ad hoc, not using managed travel, and they were using things like Expedia or Kayak, or employees would just book it and then it would flow in or they would email it in," Qari said. "By working with a partner like Amtrav, and having a more managed travel solution, what we are also able to deliver is more duty of care or traveler safety and security and control, so organizations are able to pinpoint exactly where employees are."
Emburse this year has rolled out payment card components for several of the expense brands under its corporate umbrella, including Abacus, Chrome River, and now Tallie. The company has said it plans to add payment pieces to all of its subsidiary brands, which also includes Certify and Nexonia.