New App Lets Employees Share in Travel Expense Savings

A new travel tool from expense management application maker Expensify is taking a new approach to expense management, where if employees save their company money, they might get to pocket some of that cash.

The new system, called Price to Beat, compares the price of flight, hotel, and car reservations from a user’s expense report to the average price of similar bookings on the day of booking, Price to Beat notifies users if their spend falls above or below the average. In the case of reservations that fall below the average cost, policy administrators can choose to enable Expensify Rewards and share a portion of the savings with the employee, thus incentivizing employees to spend responsibly.

“Price to Beat and Expensify Rewards gamify corporate travel by giving employees a share of their company’s cost savings,” says David Barrett, founder and CEO of Expensify. “We’re not here to enforce anyone’s behavior, but we do want to bring transparency to the corporate travel industry and create a solution that’s win/win for both employees and employers.”

Although Price to Beat is still in beta, setting up a Price to Beat and Expensify Rewards policy only takes a few minutes. Policy administrators can customize policies according to their preferences and expectations and choose whether or not to enable Expensify Rewards. For example, policies can be set up that compare reservations to the average cost of a three-star hotel in the destination city, a nonstop economy flight, or a luxury rental car. There is no penalty for reservations that fall above the average price, but the difference in cost will be highlighted to both the employee and the administrator.

Administrators can even choose to include the reward amount as a reimbursable expense on an employee’s expense report, so the user does not have to take any extra steps to receive a reward. If a company has Price to Beat and Expensify Rewards enabled, then the user simply needs to forward travel receipts to receipts@expensify.com within 24 hours of booking, and Expensify will automatically take care of the rest.

This announcement comes during GBTA, the Global Business Travel Association’s annual convention, which Expensify is attending for the second time. “Expense report management isn’t just about creating and filing expense reports,” continues Barrett. “It’s about streamlining business travel so that organizations can spend time focusing on building their teams and products instead of getting bogged down by the hassles of travel logistics.”

To sign up for the beta or learn more about Price to Beat, click here.