The travel management company’s latest innovation, BCD Pay™, is a suite of solutions that use artificial intelligence, machine learning and open APIs to simplify, digitize and automate corporate travel payment, reconciliation, and invoice management for its clients. Available in select markets beginning in early 2022, BCD Pay will supply a frictionless, digital payment process from trip booking and payment through reconciliation.
Clients who subscribe to BCD Pay will benefit from a “Smart Payment” rules engine that simplifies the management of payment policy and spending limits across traveler segments. It provides seamless orchestration of payment, invoices and receipts during the trip and features an automated console to review, reconcile and audit T&E spend management, invoices, receipt, credit card and expense transactions.
PAIN POINTS OF T&E SPEND MANAGEMENT
- A recent BCD survey shows more than 50% of customers still struggle with missing invoices, receipts, credit card reconciliations, and managing the quality of expense and spend data.
- More than 25% of companies face challenges managing payments for meetings, events, and non-employee travel, with the changing post-COVID hybrid workplace increasing the complexity around payments and expense management for infrequent travelers.
- For travelers, simplicity is the theme. They want a seamless payment and expense process that saves time and eliminates the need for paper receipts and the back and forth of the approval process. This all starts with digital payment, which has increased in demand with the pandemic. In fact, 65% of travelers cite contactless payment as a key factor for the return to travel.
A seamless experience for travelers, travel management and finance alike
“Our vision is to remove the friction and pain points experienced by travelers, travel managers and finance teams related to their travel and expense payment, invoices, reimbursement and reconciliation,” said Ajay Singh, Vice President, Digital Payment and Expense Products at BCD. “BCD Pay eases the burden of travelers, who are looking for a simple process with no need to make payments or expense claims. It helps managers maintain and improve control over payment for corporate travel, meetings and events and get greater payment visibility. It also frees up management time by automating manual tasks related to reconciliation and workflow and enriches data transfers by streamlining the T&E spend management process.”
Saves time and rework
During pilot testing, BCD Pay has shown a 75% improvement in the cycle time of end-to-end data ingestion, reconciliation, reporting and data integration across a fragmented ecosystem of back offices, ERP systems and credit card issuer systems.
“We’re extremely pleased with the positive feedback from our clients during the discovery and testing phase of BCD Pay, not only on gained efficiencies and cost savings, but on the overall experience,” said Yannis Karmis, Senior Vice President of Global Digital Strategy. “BCD Pay is truly going to transform the way companies manage and reconcile employee and non-employee expenses.”
