How the Southampton City Council refines travel spend and policy with TravelPerk
Southampton City Council
The challenge: Issues with independent travel bookings
- Time management: Independent bookings through staff members took time away from their actual work. Processing the individual requests and invoices was, in turn, time-consuming for managers and administrative staff.
- Travel spend: Due to the number of providers as well as the various options for payment and reimbursement, travel spend was difficult to track. Creating accurate reports and analyses – which is particularly important for a government institution to show how taxpayer money is being used – was a challenging and resource-heavy process.
- Policy: Since travel was booked through various different channels, with varying inventory and options, it was challenging to implement a travel policy that could be followed by everybody.
The solution: A centralised, comprehensive and efficient travel platform
“It's quite a neat setup, easy to use and self-explanatory. There are different modes for the booking side of it and the administrative side. […]My favourite feature is probably the reporting feature: You can schedule reports – so that managers can get an understanding of how their teams are using the system and analyse usage regarding dates, duration of bookings and more. Additionally, you can search up bookings by name of individual staff members, which we use a lot for processing invoices.”Bertie Watson: Contract Officer, Southampton City Council
Bertie Watson: Contract Officer, Southampton City Council
The results: Greater compliance, more transparency and less work
Creating travel policies and enabling compliance
- Our experts helped set up guidelines for the usage duration of certain elements, such as car hire.
- Southampton City Council is in the process of establishing an overarching corporate travel policy that is easy to follow within the platform’s parameters.
- Additionally, the Council is exploring sustainable options such as incentives for train travel and electric vehicles. TravelPerk is equally committed to greener travel and is prepared to help the Council in meeting their sustainability targets for corporate travel, ensuring that any future changes in corporate policy can be easily integrated into the current system.
Tracking bookings and travel spend
Freeing up resources
What TravelPerk provided
- Speedy onboarding
- Best practice around spending and policy limits
- Comprehensive Management Information reporting
- Extensive inventory