BTN
editor-in-chief David Meyer in the Aug. 9 issue made an unfavorable comparison
between the business travel industry's efforts to develop reporting for
ancillary airline fees and another industry initiative—the electronic delivery
of hotel folio data. Meyer characterized the hotel e-folio effort as less than
successful because expense reporting still isn't 100 percent paperless and some
hotel chains have yet to embrace the concept.
Paperless expense reporting is not only possible, however,
it's being practiced by many companies today, thanks to suppliers participating
in e-receipt programs. And while it's true that not every supplier has yet
adopted a paperless approach, it's clear that the evolution that will one day
lead us to Meyer's 100 percent paper-free vision for business travel is well on
its way.
But don't take a technology vendor's word for it. Ask those
travel managers who are already enjoying the real-life paperless benefits and
enhanced visibility of e-receipts. During the past year alone, over 1.3 million
e-receipts were delivered directly into the expense reports of Concur customers
who have opted in to our e-receipt platform. That's a match rate that exceeds
50 percent of their hotel bookings and nearly 100 percent of car rentals (and
that's before Marriott joined the program in August). What defined success for
those travel managers, however, is the hundreds of thousands of hours in
estimated time their travelers saved in preparing their expense reports.
Ultimately, the success of wholesale adoption of hotel and
car rental e-receipts hinges on the willingness of suppliers and technology
providers to look beyond the reporting tools available through the credit card
or the global distribution system and invest in alternative solutions that
bring real value to the traveler and corporate client. Addressing the airline
ancillary fee reporting challenges will likely require the same creativity and
investment.