Travel and expense spend leaks because the program usually has:
- unclear policy and exception rules
- weak approvals (or approvals that happen after the spend)
- corporate card spend that is hard to audit
- unused tickets and credits that are never recovered
- no cadence to review exceptions and fix root causes
This collection installs a beginner-safe operating system to reduce cost without breaking travel:
- policy and approval rules that are enforceable
- card and expense guardrails AP can audit
- a recovery motion for unused tickets and credits
- a simple savings estimate memo to align Finance, Procurement, and Operations
Who this collection is for
- Finance and AP teams handling expense reimbursements and card audits
- Procurement teams negotiating travel vendors or managing a TMC
- Operations teams trying to reduce spend without slowing down work
- Any company where travel is meaningful and exceptions are common
What you will install
By the end of this collection you should have:
- a clear travel policy and approval matrix
- guardrails for corporate card and reimbursements
- an unused ticket and credit recovery cadence
- measurable exception categories and a weekly review loop
- a quantified savings estimate and a memo template
How to use this collection
Install in this order:
- Travel policy and approval rules
- Corporate card and expense guardrails
- Unused ticket recovery and credit management
- Leakage estimator and 30 / 60 / 90 plan
Beginner-safe definitions
Out of policy: spend that violates your rules (booking channel, class of travel, rate caps, missing approval).
TMC: travel management company.
Unused ticket: airline ticket value not used due to cancellation or change.
Credit: airline or vendor credit that can be redeemed later.
MCC: merchant category code used for card spend controls.
What good looks like
- exceptions are measurable and trending down
- unused ticket recovery is a repeatable monthly motion
- card and expense audits are fast and consistent
- policy is clear enough that most people do not need exceptions
- savings show up in billing and expense trend, not just spreadsheets