What is travel and expense (T&E) management?
Travel and expense (T&E) management is how a company controls spending on business travel and employee expenses: booking trips within policy, paying through company cards or employees' own money, capturing receipts, approving expense claims, reimbursing employees, and recording the costs with the right tax treatment. T&E software combines travel booking with expense management.
Also calledT&ET&E managementtravel and expense management
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- Covers
- Booking, payment, receipts, reimbursement
- Paid by
- Company cards or employees
- Tax issues
- VAT recovery, per diems, mileage
How travel and expense management works
Travel is booked through a tool that shows options within policy, such as fare classes and hotel price caps, and may need pre-approval. Spending on the trip goes on company cards or is paid personally and reimbursed. Receipts are captured from the phone or email, matched to card transactions and coded, with VAT or GST recovered where allowed. Approvers review exceptions, reimbursements are paid with payroll or by bank transfer, and the costs post to the ledger. Policies also cover per diems and mileage, which have tax rules in each country. Linking booking, cards and expenses in one system gives finance full visibility of travel cost and duty-of-care data on where employees are. Emburse, Brex and Ramp combine travel and expenses, and Expensify handles expenses and travel for smaller businesses.
Common questions
What is the difference between T&E and expense management?+
Expense management covers all employee spending and expense claims. T&E adds travel booking and travel policy, so trips are controlled before money is spent.
What should a travel and expense policy include?+
Who can travel and with what approval, booking rules and price caps, per diem and mileage rates, which costs are reimbursed, receipt requirements and deadlines for submitting expense claims.
How do company cards help with T&E?+
They remove most out-of-pocket expense claims, apply limits and merchant controls at the point of purchase, and match receipts to transactions automatically.
Travel and expense software
Part of Accountio’s accounting technology coverage · Glossary
