Expensify Opens Travel Management Tool to All Customers

Financial management app Expensify says its travel management tool is now available to all customers.

The company first announced Expensify Travel last year, opening a waitlist to early select customers. Now, Expensify said in a news release Tuesday (Feb. 25), the offering is open to all members through the web, mobile and desktop apps.

“The tool enables members to book and manage flights, hotels, rail, and car rentals all within Expensify’s platform while ensuring compliance with corporate travel policies, reducing costs, and simplifying workflows,” the company said in a news release.

According to the release, Expensify Travel lets users do things like book flights, hotels or rental cars within the app. It also includes “real-time, policy-driven approvals” to make sure trips are authorized quickly, plus centralized virtual card payments to simplify expenses reconciliation.

“These innovations enable businesses to not only simplify their travel and expense processes but also reduce costs, improve policy compliance, and provide better care for employees on the go,” the company said.

The expanded launch of Expensify Travel comes amid an uptick in business travel, with a majority of companies in one survey late last year saying they had increased their travel budgets for in-person meetings and conferences.

“Three in five buyers of commercial travel services say their employees are attending more meetings and conferences than had been seen last year,” PYMNTS wrote in January. “For the companies sending those employees out, controlling costs remains paramount and has been cited by 78% of firms queried.”

Meanwhile, research by PYMNTS Intelligence — from the Visa-commissioned Growth Corporates Working Capital Index — found that the use of working capital solutions, including virtual cards, was set to grow by 25% for commercial travel firms.

“Business expansion is among the top reasons that corporations embrace working capital,” that report added. “The data show that 87% of commercial travel firms are likely to use at least one corporate travel solution in the current year — and 73% of firms surveyed in this vertical said they’d do so to use those solutions strategically.”

In other travel payments news, PYMNTS spoke recently with Kristian Gjerding, co-founder and CEO at payments orchestration platform CellPoint Digital, about the sector’s slow digital transformation and the importance of payment simplicity.

“The need for simplification has grown as the complexities of the travel ecosystem have exploded,” Gjerding told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.

The traveler is not worried with the mechanics of the payment process, he added, but about getting what they want for the right price, without any friction.

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