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What is travel and expense management? (Complete guide)
Learn what travel and expense management covers, how the process works, and what a good policy includes.
Travel and expense (T&E) management is the system for planning, booking, tracking, approving, and reimbursing the costs traveling employees incur.
This guide contains:
- Components of travel and expense management
- Why travel and expense management is important
- How the travel and expense process works
- What to include in a travel and expense policy
- Popular travel and expense management tools
When your team travels abroad, secure mobile data is key, and that’s where Holafly for Business comes in handy.
Business travel made easy
Key components of travel and expense management
A business trip follows a predictable lifecycle, and a T&E program covers it in full.
| Stage | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Travel policy | The rules on what’s covered and what isn’t are set before booking |
| Booking | Flights, hotels, and cars are reserved via an approved tool (or a travel management company) |
| Expense capture | Receipts and card charges are logged, usually by mobile scan or card matching |
| Approval workflows | Expenses are routed to the right reviewer based on amount, category, or department |
| Reimbursement and reconciliation | Out-of-pocket costs are paid back, card spend is reconciled, and everything is posted to the right accounting codes |
Why travel and expense management is important
Business travel is a big, growing line item.
The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) expects global business travel spending to reach a record $1.71 trillion in 2026, and the number of trips is set to exceed 1.84 billion.
So, here’s how T&E management pays off:
- Cost control: An out-of-policy booking is flagged before it’s confirmed, rather than weeks later during reconciliation.
- Less manual work: Fewer duplicated entries, miscategorized expenses, and typos for finance to chase.
- Spending visibility: Spend appears in real time.
- Lower fraud risk: Automated policy checks and duplicate detection close gaps that manual review might miss.
- Improved employee experience: Faster booking and reimbursement lower the number of frustrated emails or Slack messages.
- Duty of care: Live itinerary and booking data inform travel managers about who’s traveling and where.
For the traveler-safety side of a program, see our guides on corporate travel security, travel risk management software, and travel risk management.
How the travel and expense process works
In a manual process, each stage of a business trip is a separate handoff: a booking email, a receipt photo, and a spreadsheet entry afterward.
An automated platform integrates the above stages into a single flow.
Here’s how it looks:
- Request a trip using an approved tool, specifying the destination, dates, and estimated cost.
- Book from in-policy options (out-of-policy choices are flagged).
- Capture expenses from card transactions or receipt scans.
- Check each expense against policy, so anything outside the limits is marked.
- Approve the report, with exceptions highlighted.
- Reimburse out-of-pocket costs and reconcile card spend against the approved report.
- Sync the data to the accounting system with the correct cost center and GL code.
What to include in a travel and expense policy
A policy works when it answers important questions before a trip. Below are the five elements that should do most of the work:
- Spending limits by category: A common structure sets a daily meal allowance (e.g., $75), a nightly hotel cap by city tier (e.g., $200 in standard-cost cities), and flight-class rules.
- Approval hierarchies: Who signs off on what (e.g., the direct manager for standard trips, a VP for international travel).
- Pre-trip approval thresholds: Sign-off required before booking a trip over a certain cost, often paired with a minimum booking window of around two weeks for domestic trips and three weeks for international trips.
- Preferred vendors: Negotiated rates with airlines, hotels, and car rentals from the booking tool.
- Receipt requirements: The amount above which a receipt is required, and what a per diem covers.
Popular travel and expense management software
The right platform depends on your company’s size, travel volume, and the finance stack.
Here’s how popular options compare:
| Software | Best for | Key strength |
|---|---|---|
| Ramp | Companies of all sizes | Cards, expenses, travel, and bill pay in one place |
| Navan | Travel-heavy teams | Flight and hotel booking experience |
| SAP Concur | Enterprises | Deep ERP integration |
| Emburse | Teams that want product choice | Certify, Abacus, and Chrome River options |
| Expensify | Smaller teams | Simple receipt scanning |
Brex and Payhawk are also worth considering, as both offer corporate cards with expense workflows.
When choosing platforms, company size in particular can be a useful guide:
- Under 100 employees: Prioritize ease of use, quick setup, and transparent pricing, especially if you don’t have a dedicated finance ops person to run the tool.
- 100–500 employees: Policy customization and an accounting integration matter most, given manual journal entries at that size can be time-consuming.
- 500+ employees: Global support, multi-currency reimbursement, and ERP integration are non-negotiable.
Manage your team’s data under one roof with Holafly
When your team is on the road, secure mobile data is part of the setup.
Holafly for Business is an eSIM provider available in 160+ destinations that activates on your team’s devices, so they don’t have to search for local SIM cards or face roaming charges. You also get access to our centralized management platform, the Holafly Business Center, where you can buy eSIMs in bulk, assign them to employees, and track data usage.
Billing is consolidated into a monthly invoice, making costs easy to manage. Once a plan is assigned, employees get an activation QR code by email, so they’re covered with minimal downtime.
Holafly Plans for Business come in four tiers, all featuring hotspot, 4G/5G, and 24/7 multilingual support:
- Daily: unlimited data with pay-per-day flexibility, built for short business trips under 16 days a month.
- Monthly: unlimited data for teams traveling more than 16 days a month, a fit for frequent travelers and long-term remote staff.
- Annual: unlimited data for ultra-frequent travelers, suited to long-term global operations and predictable annual budgets.
- Enterprise: bespoke plans for companies managing travel for 20+ employees a year, with volume discounts, a dedicated account manager, priority support, and custom integrations, built to optimize costs, streamline operations, and ensure seamless global connectivity across teams.
Not sure which plan is right for your team? Book a demo.
Business travel made easy
Frequently asked questions about travel and expense management
The signs a company has outgrown manual travel expense tracking include a month-end close that slips due to outstanding reports, reimbursement that takes 2+ weeks, and spend analysis that requires cross-checking three or more systems.
When you switch to T&E software, savings depend on travel volume and how manual the old process was. A 2025 Forrester Total Economic Impact study commissioned by Navan put the return at 376% over three years, with payback in under six months and about 80% less time spent filing expense reports.
When looking for T&E software, watch for per-booking fees, implementation and onboarding charges, integration or API fees, and premium support tiers.
You can usually keep your existing corporate cards, since many T&E platforms connect to the cards you use and import transactions.
T&E platform implementation takes from a few days for small teams to a few weeks for larger ones. You should expect to commit time from finance and IT to draft the policy, connect the general ledger, and ensure company-wide adoption.
T&E platforms track unused tickets and airline credits and prompt travelers to apply them to the next booking. Still, coverage varies by airline and fare type, and some credits need manual follow-up.
I’m a writer with over eight years of experience in digital content. My work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and the BBC. At Holafly, I write clear, practical guides to help travelers stay connected with eSIM technology. In my spare time, I enjoy car detailing, biking around Warsaw, and capturing portraits.
