Unmanaged Travel

Trips employees book on their own, outside a unified system and without centralised expense control. Because these bookings bypass the managed programme, the company has limited visibility into what was spent, which suppliers were used, or where the traveller is. Reducing unmanaged travel is a common goal for travel managers trying to improve compliance and duty of care.

Unmanaged travel usually looks like this: employees buy tickets and hotels on consumer websites, pay with personal or corporate cards and later submit receipts for reimbursement. Each trip generates separate documents, often in different formats and currencies, which the finance team has to check and enter manually. Rules are applied after the fact, if at all, and the company only learns what a trip cost once the expense report arrives. Employees, meanwhile, spend their own time searching for options, comparing prices and filling in expense forms instead of focusing on the purpose of the trip.

The hidden costs add up quickly. Without a single channel, companies cannot consolidate volume to negotiate better rates, often lose VAT that could have been reclaimed, spend hours processing expense claims and struggle to forecast travel budgets. In an emergency, they may not know which employees are in an affected region. For small companies unmanaged travel can seem simpler at first, but as the number of trips grows, the lack of control becomes expensive.

Moving from unmanaged to managed travel does not have to be complicated. With Tumodo, a dedicated manager handles account setup, travel policy configuration and integrations — the connection to an accounting system can go live within 24 hours. Employees then book through a familiar web interface or the mobile app, and every booking is captured automatically in reports and closing documents, with no receipts to chase.