Traveling for business can be one of the most exciting and fulfilling aspects of your job. It can also be among the most stressful. This is especially true when it comes to managing the financial aspects of corporate travel.
The good news is that innovations in financial technology (fintech) are making business travel easier, more efficient, and less stressful than ever before.
The Financial Hassles Involved in Work Travel
For many jobs today, travel isn’t just an occasional necessity; it’s a routine fact of one’s work life. You don’t even have to be some jet-setting corporate executive to find yourself frequently on the road for work.
Professions ranging from nursing to construction to freelance writing routinely involve traveling. However, business travel can be both a positive and a negative thing when it comes to finances.
For instance, you have to track and report expenses, take care to keep business, and personal funds separate, and coordinate billing and payments for company-related expenses.
If your business travels take you abroad, which is highly likely at some point in your career, then you are also going to have to deal with issues such as currency exchange. It’s a lot, especially when you’re also trying to do your best work and represent your employer well in these unfamiliar environments and contexts.
Fortunately, fintech can go far in alleviating some of the money hassles you might experience on your business trip.
Automating Billing and Expenses
Often, one of the biggest headaches of corporate travel relates to billing and expense reports. It can be time-consuming and aggravating to try to keep personal and professional expenses separate while traveling for business, for instance.
FinTech Automation For Corporate Travel
However, fintech automation can make the process simpler and more accurate. For example, automating recurring payments makes identifying and tracking unusual expenditures that are associated with your business trip easier.
This helps you more readily discern and document the costs on your expense report for reimbursement.
Cryptocurrency Transactions Can Help Corporate Travel
As suggested above, fintech innovations can be especially beneficial for those who are traveling internationally for business.
Digital payments using cryptocurrencies, for instance, can eliminate the need for currency exchange, allowing for truly borderless financial transactions. The ability to pay for transportation, lodging, meals, and other services through crypto business travel is more efficient and less costly.
Travelers no longer have to wait in line to exchange their dollars for euros, for instance, nor do they have to incur exchange fees or losses in currency values. Crypto maintains its current market value no matter where the money exchange occurs.
Innovative Payment Processing
Fintech isn’t just making payment processing easier through the use of crypto. People can exchange more traditional forms of currency seamlessly and securely through digital payment systems.
This means that almost every aspect of the business trip can be paid for online, eliminating the need for travelers to hustle to a ticket counter or wait in line at a hotel check-in desk.
Buy Now Pay Later
In addition, vendors of every stripe are increasingly turning to buy now pay later (BNPL) models to promote efficiency and drive growth.
With these fintech innovations, business travelers don’t have to pay the initial costs of the trip and then wait days or even weeks for their employer to compensate them. Instead, with tools such as BNPL, delayed and often automated, payments can be tied to the company account, not the travelers.
Safety and Security
One of the greatest advantages of using fintech for business travel is the financial security it can offer travelers, especially when they are abroad. Fiat currencies, traditional travelers’ checks, and other physical forms of payment are subject to being lost or stolen.
However, through safer payment methods — from crypto to corporate debit and credit cards to payment apps — business travelers have far less to worry about. A lost or stolen wallet isn’t going to leave them stranded, for example, because company funds are housed elsewhere, ideally in a centralized bank.
As long as travelers can provide the appropriate credentials, such as a password, passkey, or unique personally identifiable information (PII), they can get the digital money they need.
The Takeaway
Business travel can be one of the best parts of any job, and fintech innovations make corporate trips even better. Fintech promises to make business trips safer, less expensive, and more efficient. This includes automating billing and expense reporting and completing most financial transactions digitally.
This also includes using digital currencies, particularly cryptocurrencies, for international travel and eliminating the need for currency exchange. Fintech also facilitates safer payment processes through account centralization. No longer do travelers have to worry that a lost or stolen wallet will leave them stranded.