Which approval process is best for your company's business travel?

Centralised or decentralised approval, active or passive approval, what is the right choice for your business travel programme? What is the risk to the business if travel is not approved in time? Will this add to lost savings?

Some companies decentralise the approval process, allowing staff to book their business travel, with automated approval for those bookings within policy, keeping travellers on the move. But are they paying attention to the reason for travel?

What’s clear is that a level of oversight is needed to ensure that travel is booked in policy with the cost centre and purpose of the trip monitored. In cases where a business has a turnover of staff, there is a risk that the purpose and requirement of the approval process may no longer be understood. As such, companies need to communicate their travel policies and approval procedures to all employees to ensure compliance and minimise misunderstandings.

Read on to learn more about approvals and the options available to you.

Centralised versus decentralisation approval for business travel

A traditional centralised booking process places the power to book and approve travel in the hands of selected administrative staff or travel bookers. This approach can be favoured by businesses as it allows for high levels of control and oversight over travel bookings, policy and budget.

In contrast, a decentralised approach gives travellers the ability to book their own business travel. With policy control improvements within booking technology, many companies with a younger or predominantly remote or hybrid workforce, used to booking things themselves, favour this approach.

Should you choose to follow a decentralised booking approach, it’s important to assess what approval process is best; be it no approvals or an active pre-trip or passive approval system that can be specifically configured based on company travel policy.

Configure the approval system to policy requirements

When implementing a decentralised booking process, your chosen corporate online booking tool should still support your company’s varying business travel policy requirements to make bookings and approval simple; for example role type, the purpose/reason for travel, country pair, supplier choice, fare class and “days in advance” booking policy, each producing a variety of triggers. The online tool can be configured to either restrict out-of-policy behaviour or provide room for movement.

Active approval

Active (pre-trip) approvals still require direct approval from the travel or line manager for the booking to be ticketed. This notification is sent via email to the approver, and they can approve or decline by simply clicking the link within the email with no need to log in.

With an active approval, there is a reliance on the approver to act within the ticketing time limit, which can be as short as the same day. If this is missed, the lowest rates or fares can be lost, and bookings need to be requested again. To help combat this, a reminder email notification is also sent to the approver to remind them of travel requests before the ticketing window closes, helping to ensure that the best fares are not lost due to oversight.

Passive approval

With a lean toward a decentralised booking approach, many companies are recognising the benefits of a passive approval model for their travel bookings.

Passive approval can save time for approvers and bookers while ensuring that the best fares and urgent bookings are not lost. Due to the highly configurable nature of Corporate Travel Management’s (CTM) Lightning online booking tool, companies can choose to allow all in-policy bookings to be automatically approved, safe in the knowledge that these bookings are within the company’s travel policy. To maintain oversight, notifications of bookings can be sent to the selected ‘approver’ once bookings are made, ensuring all required facets of the business remain informed.

Approvals in booking technology

With the right technology implemented, a decentralised travel booking approach with an appropriate approval process can simplify the booking process for business travellers, while continuing to ensure in-policy bookings and policy adherence.

CTM’s Lightning online booking tool offers the following features and more to address several pain points in the approvals process:

• Multi-tier approvals
• Policy by country
• Reallocate approver
• Days in advance (DIA)
• Approval based on role type

CTM Approve is a solution that boosts the approval productivity process for both travel bookers and business travellers. CTM Approve leverages CTM’s customer-centric technology architecture, delivering a wide range of flexible and integrated approval features to complement our customers’ travel management systems and processes. CTM Approve works seamlessly for bookings made through any channel, with both Lightning or third-party booking tools. The intuitive workflow and configuration options enable customers to create their own travel approval compliance for desktop or mobile approval workflows.

You can find out more about Lightning, CTM Approve and which features are best aligned with your business goals, by speaking with a CTM Business Analysis and Solutions Manager, or your CTM Account Manager.