A travel management program, in the language of the large company, is the set of rules, suppliers, approvals and reports that a travel manager runs. A small company can have a corporate travel program without the travel manager, and it is a good idea to, because a programme is what makes travel a routine rather than a series of favours: the policy with its caps, the approval route with its threshold, the suppliers the company prefers and why, the register of who is away, and a date the whole thing is reviewed. This page sets out what a programme contains at small-company scale and which of its documents the free worksheets on this site produce.
The programme is the policy plus the route the request takes
A corporate travel program starts with the policy: the caps, the lead time, the allowance, the approval threshold. The travel policy worksheet drafts it from those figures and shows the two-night ceiling they imply. The programme then says how a request travels: the traveler costs it on the request form, the manager approves under the threshold, a named approver signs over it, and the approval releases the bookings. Written down once, that route is most of the programme.
Preferred suppliers, at small scale
A large programme negotiates with airlines and hotel chains; the federal government's City Pair Program is the model, and a company with a few trips a month cannot do it. What it can do is name the suppliers it prefers and why: the hotel near the client that has always honoured the cancellation, the airline with the most direct flights from the home airport, the car rental desk that is open when the late flight lands. That list, and a lead time, is the small company's supplier clause.
The register and the review
A travel management program that has no register is a set of rules nobody checks. The register lists who is away, where, on which booking, with whom to call, and in Perdiemo Pro it is a view of the trips rather than a list someone keeps. The review is a date, usually a year out, when the caps are read against what trips actually cost (the estimator and the record give that figure) and the allowance is read against the federal standard rate the GSA publishes for the new fiscal year.
What the programme deliberately leaves out
Expense claims and reimbursement are the finance process and a different document; the programme points at it and stops. Traveler screening and monitoring beyond the register are not a small company's business. Fares and hotel rates are not published in the programme because they change daily; the caps are. A corporate travel program that tries to be all of those is an enterprise document nobody will read.
Questions people ask about travel management program
What is a travel management program?
The rules, approval route, preferred suppliers, register and review date for a company's travel, written once. A small company can run one without a travel manager.
What does a corporate travel program contain?
The policy with caps and lead time, who approves at what threshold, the suppliers preferred and why, the register of who is away, and a review date. The free worksheets draft the policy and cost the requests.
How often should the programme be reviewed?
Once a year is usual: the caps against what trips cost from the record, the allowance against the federal standard rate for the new fiscal year, the suppliers against how they performed.