Corporate travel
Corporate travel management software that checks the policy before anyone books
Write your travel policy as rules, send exceptions to the right approver and see every trip coded to a department before the invoice arrives. Self-hosted, with the source code included.
- Policy rules
- Approval chains
- Cost centres
- Spend by department
Policy engine
How corporate travel management software turns a policy into rules
Corporate travel management software lets employees book their own flights, hotels and cars while the company decides what is allowed. In PHPTRAVELS the travel policy is not a PDF on the intranet. It is a set of rules that run during search and at checkout, so a traveller sees what is in policy before choosing, and an exception is caught before a ticket is issued.
Each rule has a condition and an outcome. The condition reads the trip: cabin, flight time, price, city, supplier and how far ahead it is booked. The outcome is to allow it, to ask for a reason, or to hold it for approval. The screen below is a sample policy with two rules. Pick a trip to see which rule fires and where the request goes next.
Booking content fromFlightsStaysCars & transfersAll integrations
Rule 1 · Short-haul cabin
Matches- IfCabinis Business
- AndFlight timeis under 6 hours
- ThenNeeds line manager approval
Rule 2 · Hotel cap per city
No match- IfNightly rateis over the city cap
- ThenNeeds manager and finance approval
Nightly caps in USD
- London
- 250
- Paris
- 220
- Frankfurt
- 180
- Dubai
- 200
- New York
- 300
Trip request
London to Frankfurt
Business class · 1h 35m
Rule 1 matches: business cabin on a flight under 6 hours. The request is held for the line manager.
London to New York
Business class · 8h 05m
No rule matches: the flight is longer than 6 hours, so business class is in policy. The trip is booked straight away.
Paris hotel
2 nights · per night
Rule 2 matches: the rate is over the Paris cap. The manager approves, then finance signs off the extra cost.
Approval chain
- 01TravellerDone
- 02Line managerWaiting for decision
- 03FinanceNot needed
- 04BookedNot started
Sample screen. Rules, caps, prices and names are examples.
Spend reporting
Spend by department, coded as each trip is booked
Every booking carries a department and a cost centre, so the report is ready the moment the trip is made. Nobody rebuilds it from card statements at month end.
- Sales48,200
- Engineering31,500
- Marketing22,800
- Operations18,400
- Finance7,600
- People5,900
Total134,400 USD
Sample data in USD. Your report uses your own departments and currency.
- Exception share
- The lighter part of each bar is spend that broke a rule and was approved. A large share points to a cap that is too tight, or to a team that needs a reminder of the policy.
- Drill down
- Open a department to see its travellers, trips and suppliers, and the reason given for each exception.
- Export to finance
- Download bookings and spend for any period, or pull them through the JSON API into your accounting or ERP system.
Related:Travel expense managementTravel accounting integration
Trip record
What every business trip carries
Rules and reports only work if the data is captured once, at the moment of booking. These are the details each trip keeps from request to invoice.
- Traveller profile
- Name as on the passport, document details, seat and meal preferences, loyalty numbers and an emergency contact. Entered once and reused on every booking.
- Company and cost centre
- The legal entity, department and cost centre or project code the trip is billed to.
- Trip purpose
- A short reason chosen from your own list, such as client meeting, conference or training.
- Policy result
- In policy, or the rule it broke and the reason code the traveller chose.
- Approval trail
- Who approved, when, and any comment, kept with the booking for audits.
- Rates and fees
- Negotiated corporate rates where they apply, plus any service fee or markup.
- Payment
- Company credit, a prepaid wallet or a card, and the invoice the trip appears on.
Roles
Who does what in a corporate account
Four roles, each seeing only what it needs. One person can hold more than one role, for example a manager who also travels.
| Task | Traveller | Approver | Travel manager | Finance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search and book within policy | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Book for colleagues | No | No | Yes | No |
| Approve or reject exceptions | No | Own trips or team | Yes | Yes |
| Edit rules and city caps | No | No | Yes | No |
| Load corporate rates | No | No | Yes | No |
| See travel spend | Own trips or team | Own trips or team | Yes | Yes |
| Invoices and exports | No | No | No | Yes |
A typical set-up. Permissions are set per company account.
Rollout
From installation to the first approved trip
A common order of work for a company or a travel management company. Each step shows who usually does it.
- 01
Install on your server
DevelopersHost PHPTRAVELS on a server or cloud account you control, so traveller data stays where you choose.
- 02
Connect booking content
Travel deskAdd flight, hotel and car suppliers with your own credentials, and load the corporate rates you have negotiated.
- 03
Build the company
Travel deskCreate the company account with its departments and cost centres, then import travellers from a file or your HR system.
- 04
Write the rules
Travel managerTurn each line of the written policy into a rule: cabin, hotel caps per city, advance purchase and preferred suppliers.
- 05
Map the approvers
Travel managerSet who approves for each department or traveller level, and who signs off when a trip goes above a value.
- 06
Run a pilot
Travel deskLet one team book for a few weeks, read the exception report and loosen any cap that blocks normal trips.
- 07
Open to everyone
FinanceInvite the rest of the company and move month-end billing to one consolidated invoice.
Operating models
In-house travel desk or travel management company
The same installation serves both. What changes is who the customer is and how the trip is billed.
In-house travel desk
One company, many travellers
- One policy, with different rules by department or seniority
- Employees book themselves and the desk handles complex trips
- Spend is reported to your own finance team
- Internal recharges to departments instead of booking fees
Travel management company
Many corporate clients, one platform
- A separate account per client, with its own policy, rates and approvers
- Your agents book for travellers who call or email
- Consolidated invoices per client or cost centre
- Service fees or markups per client, product or route
Shared by both: traveller profiles, the rule engine, approval chains, 24 languages and invoicing in each company's currency.
Already selling leisure or B2B travel? Open a corporate desk on the same platform:Agency management softwareBusiness travel management
Choosing software
Questions to ask before you choose a corporate travel tool
Use these on any shortlist. The answer underneath is how PHPTRAVELS handles it.
Is the policy checked before booking, or only reported afterwards?
Before. Rules run in search and at checkout.
Can approval depend on the trip, not only on the traveller?
Yes. Cabin, price, city and timing can all send a trip for approval.
Can you use your own supplier contracts and corporate rates?
Yes. Suppliers are connected with your own credentials.
Where is traveller data stored?
On infrastructure you choose, which helps with rules such as GDPR.
Can your team change the workflow?
Yes. The full source code is included under a commercial licence.
Is pricing per user, per trip or one-time?
A one-time licence, not a subscription.
Can finance get the data out?
Yes. Reports and exports by period, plus a JSON API.
FAQ
Corporate travel management software questions
What travel managers, finance teams and travel management companies ask before rolling out business travel booking.
Talk to salesIt is a booking system for business trips. Employees book flights, hotels and cars, and the company applies its travel policy, approval rules, traveller profiles, cost centres, invoicing and reports to every trip.
Corporate travel software controls how a company's employees travel. Travel agency software runs an agency's own sales, suppliers and agents. PHPTRAVELS covers both, so a travel management company or agency can serve corporate clients from the same installation.
Rules for cabin class, hotel caps per city, advance purchase and preferred suppliers are checked during search and at checkout. In-policy options are shown first. An exception needs a reason and, if the rule says so, approval before anything is ticketed.
Yes. A rule can send a trip to the line manager only, or to the manager and then finance. Trips that match no rule skip the chain and are booked straight away.
It covers the booked part of the trip: flights, hotels and cars, already coded and invoiced. Out-of-pocket costs such as meals and taxis are usually handled by expense software, which can read the trip data through the API or an export.
Travellers, cost centres and bookings can be exchanged through the JSON API or exported for finance. A connection to a specific system such as SAP is built by your developers or by us as custom work.
Plans start as a one-time licence, with the full source code. Hosting, maintenance and supplier fees are separate. A demo call is the quickest way to confirm which plan covers your corporate set-up.
PHPTRAVELS is self-hosted, so passport details, profiles and trip data stay on a server or cloud account you choose. That makes it easier to meet data protection rules such as GDPR.
Keep exploring
More from the platform
- Business travel managementRequests, trips, expenses and reconciliation
- Travel expense managementApprovals, receipts and reimbursements per trip
- Travel accounting integrationBookings posted to QuickBooks, Xero and Tally
- Agency management softwareQuotes, bookings, agents and finance in one system
- Pricing
- Live demo