Any company worth its salt has a travel budget. Business trips are unavoidable, especially as businesses pay less attention to state lines and borders. Companies send employees on over 400 million business trips every year, and it costs them over $110 billion per annum. That's a lot of money, and if you don't manage your business travel effectively, you'll find yourself with an inflated budget every quarter. One of your duties as a travel manager is to make sure business trips have a good ROI. However, doing that becomes difficult when you have to explain why traveling employees are constantly spending over budget. On top of that, it makes it difficult for the company to meet its financial goals. These tips from CrewFacilities.com, however, will help you maintain perfect travel policy compliance and ensure the company meets its goals. Automate your travel program. Making travel arrangements for business isn't easy, especially if you do it often, and for large groups of travelers. Not only is it tiring and stressful, but it also isn't always 100% accurate. Humans are prone to errors, but when you're a travel manager they result in lost time and resources. Automating your travel program brings all the booking, approval, expense and risk management processes in one location, and it eliminates the errors that are so common with manual systems. Travel-management software was a game-changer for both the business and recreational traveler. For businesses with strict budgets, it provided a way for them to ensure perfect travel policy compliance. All you need to do is plug your travel policy into the software. Let's say your travel policy puts a cap on the amount of money that can be spent on accommodation and transportation. Once you've plugged the policy in, the software will only highlight choices that are within your budget. This results in near-perfect travel policy compliance, and it allows the employees to retain a level of autonomy. Focus on employee satisfaction. An unhappy employee is an unproductive employee. And many travel managers make the mistake of putting cost savings above employee satisfaction. This is a terrible mistake, especially for an employee that travels regularly for business. You can combat this by making sure your policy focuses on the employees too. A self-booking platform, for instance, can stay within policy while giving traveling employees variety to choose from. Adding a day or two of leisure at the end of a trip is also a good idea. It's called bleisure, mixing business and leisure, and it is a great way to show the employees that you value their mental and physical health. Ultimately, the most sustainable solution is to hire an experienced travel management firm like CrewFacilities so that Andrea Tsakanikas and her team can constantly work on your behalf to keep costs affordable while meeting the needs of travelers.