Overview

The client is a global electronics manufacturing services provider who was experiencing issues with reconciling direct hotel bills.

The client approached CTM to help implement a virtual payment solution, to reduce the 15 hours spent on reconciliation each month.

Objectives

The main objective was to implement a more efficient payment solution that would save time and money.

The key objectives were to:

• Save time spent on reconciling direct hotel bills
• Save money through better reporting capabilities
• Reduce fraudulent bookings

Challenges

The client was dealing with 30-40 hotel direct billing bookings each month. Approximately 50% of these were relatively easy to reconcile, and another 10% were identified via our reporting tool. The remaining 40% were more difficult, often requiring 2-3 hours of extra work per month. There was also presumed fraudulent bookings, which were expected to increase by 19% year-on-year. We also had to consider that 64% of millennials do not have a credit card and that by 2020, the workforce will be made up of 50% millennials*. Given these statistics, it was evident that identifying a solution now would be valuable.

Solutions

Understanding the challenges related to hotel direct billing, ranging from the simple inability to match expenses with employees to concern of potential fraud, we recommended a Virtual Payment system to assist our client. Today’s corporate travel managers grapple with time-consuming credit card reconciliations. CTM sought to improve the process and be part of the solution. Virtual Payment offered clear enhancements and added value to the travel programme.

Virtual Payment solutions are targeted to give travellers a means to pay for travel through a one-time-use virtual card, provide a seamless booking experience for hotel direct bills, streamline the travel manager’s reconciliation process and reduce fraud and credit card exposure risk.

Our recommendation was to implement a system that would improve the traveller experience, provide an integrated booking process, capture key reporting elements necessary for reconciliation and provide robust fraud protection. The logical choice was to implement Sabre Virtual Payments through our client’s existing banking partner.

The Virtual Payment Solution is integrated with Conferma and the client’s banking provider to issue a unique virtual card per user with a pre-determined spending limit per identified hotel supplier. The solution perfectly aligned to solve our client’s challenges and has saved over 15 total man-hours per month.

Results

The client is estimated to save up to £11,500 per year with the Sabre Virtual Payment system.

Estimated £9.2k – £11.5k cost savings per year

PCI compliance and fraud protection

15 hours saved per month on reconciliation