Serko unveils cost-cutting pre-trip approval of travel expenses

Irrespective of size and scale, every business continually tries its best to cut costs.

It’s what they call good business sense, right?

Serko, Australasia’s leading online travel booking company for businesses and government agencies, has today announced the launch of new functionality, allowing users of Serko Online and Serko Incharge to pre-approve trip expenses before users leave on business trips.

In the modern day, most business expenses are approved after the expense has been incurred, making cost control extremely challenging for organisations as they often don’t know what their expense amount is until it’s too late.

By using Serko Online, an online booking engine, and Serko Incharge in tandem CEO Darrin Grafton says organisations can now pre-approve air, hire car and hotel spend before any money gets spent.

With travel expenses pre-approved, Grafton is confident this will result in tighter control spend on travel and expenses, thus moving to a more efficient mode of managing expenses by exception.

“This is important for Serko as it’s the first major integration between Serko Online and Serko Incharge, the online expense management solution we acquired at the beginning of the year,” he says.

“The integration clearly demonstrates the benefit and value of working with a single integrated solution provider for travel booking and expense management and is the first of many integrated features that we plan to roll out over the next 12 months.”

In addition to pre-trip approval, the integrated Serko Online, Serko Incharge solution allows organisations to simplify the approvals workflow and align travel approval with the expense approvals workflow.

With a single workflow for all trip expenses, approvals happen faster, which is good for travellers and managers.

The integrated function is available to all Serko Online and Serko Incharge customers immediately, adds Grafton.