After acquiring Belgian expense management company Xpenditure and business travel booking tool Maya last year, employee services firm Sodexo has integrated the tools into a T&E solution called Rydoo. When Xpenditure launched in the U.K. in March, Sodexo had told BTN it was planning to merge the two tools.
When a traveler books on Rydoo, the system creates an expense line item. Travelers also can create expense line items by using the Rydoo app to photograph receipts or by emailing receipt images to the system. Booking and expense are integrated on one desktop tool, but mobile use requires separate apps, Rydoo Travel and Rydoo Expense. A spokesperson said they eventually will merge into one app.
Travelers can book legacy and low-cost carriers; 800,000 hotel properties, including chains and independent hotels; rail; and rental cars. Travel content comes from global distribution systems, aggregators, public websites, hotel chains and independent hotels. The tool soon will feature direct connections to airlines, the spokesperson said.
Rydoo can integrate corporate, lodge and virtual cards, but the spokesperson said it works best with central billing, which Rydoo facilitates through its banking relationships. This provides travel managers with a monthly invoice of the all charges.
On the expense side, Rydoo uses artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to flag duplicate receipts and noncompliant charges for managers. On the booking side, AI learns travelers' behaviors and preferences and meshes with their companies' travel policies to produce search results. The company also is working on a chatbot that will help travelers answer simple questions like "Where is my voucher?" or "Do I have to pay at checkout?"
Pricing for Rydoo starts at 6 euros a month per active user, and the spokesperson said it targets customers of all sizes. It claims more than 500,000 users across 6,000 corporate customers, including Deloitte, Jaguar, PwC and Swiss International Air Lines. Some existing Maya and Xpenditure clients are using the platform as part of an early adopter program, and "we also have new customers that have signed for the integrated solution and are currently being implemented," the spokesperson said.