How to Handle Business Expenses During Your Upcoming Trip

If you’re getting ready to travel for business, then you’re probably thinking a lot about business expenses, your company’s budget and travel policy, and how you’re going to not only track your expenses, but also keep the prices as low as possible.

Here’s the real deal.

Fuel prices aren’t getting any cheaper.

Plus, there’s a lot of important stuff going on in the world right now.

And that means that traveling is going to continue to get more expensive.

For this reason, it’s really important to evaluate how you handle business expenses while traveling—so that you can help to save your company money while also getting business done and achieving your objective.

In this post, you’re going to learn five tips for how to do exactly that.

Let’s jump into it.

1. Book Flights After Researching Different Deals

If you’re going to be traveling for business, odds are good that you’re going to be flying for at least part of the trip.

And you may also be tasked with booking some of these flights (or booking them for your team if you’re a travel manager.)

Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is to just get online, book the flight, and get done with it.

However, you may be surprised to learn that you can actually save a lot of money by researching different deals.

Different companies sometimes offer different price points on flights going to different locations. So a little bit of shopping around may actually save you quite a bit of cash.

2. Try To Book Your Hotel Room Well In Advance

Hotel room prices tend to fluctuate with time.

And oftentimes, you’ll find a sweet spot where you can book hotel rooms at the cheapest price possible when you book in advance about one to three months.

If you book too far in advance, the returns may be relatively diminishing.

But if you wait for too long, the prices will probably tend to go up a little bit (as supply decreases).

So book early to get the best price possible.

Pro Tip: Start looking at prices about 6 months out, and then keep an eye on what those prices do. If the prices dip down—give it a bit of time and see if they go down even lower.

But if they go up, you better jump on it and book it fast—because it may be an indication that you’re running out of time!

3. Go Over Your Company’s Budget And Travel Policy

Making sure that you understand your company’s travel policy will help you to handle business expenses and keep track of your expenditures in the way that best suits your business.

For example—your manager may want you to use an app to track receipts. Or, they may want you to send receipt pictures directly to the accounting department, etc.

Figuring out exactly how they want this done will really help your manager out.

And in turn, it’ll tend to make your life that much easier as well!

4. Refresh Yourself On Per Diem And Tax Write-Offs

Understanding the tax rules for per diem and tracking expenses will also be invaluable as you manage business expenses while traveling.

Even just brushing up on a couple of articles per month on the topic can do a lot to help keep you updated with what those rates are doing.

Of course, if you have questions about this, you can also talk to your travel or booking manager as well.

5. Travel Light

And last but not least, it stands to reason that it’s going to be more expensive to travel when you have to carry more with you.

For this reason, it’s always a great idea to travel as light as possible. If you can manage the whole trip with just one bag and one carry on, that’s to your benefit.

It’ll cost you less, save you money, and just overall make the process that much more efficient.