Approvals and budgets
Approve before the money is spent.
Each traveler has a named approver, who sees the trip, its price against the cheapest in-policy option, the justification and the history, and decides before anything is booked. Department budgets are tracked against actual spend in reports.
Approval request
Program director site visit
Approval rules
The right person, every time
Approval follows the traveler, with rules set per policy group.
A named approver
Each traveler has a named approver. If none is set, any travel manager can decide.
Delegates
Approvers can hand decisions to a delegate for set dates, so trips don't wait for someone on leave.
When approval is needed
Per policy: only when a trip is out of policy, always, or never.
Trip maximum
A ceiling on the total trip price above which approval is needed.
Restricted destinations
Destinations that always need approval, or can't be booked at all.
Changes
A change that costs more or breaks policy goes back for approval; in-policy changes at the same or lower cost don't.
What approvers see
Enough to decide well
- The traveler, the trip and the option chosen.
- The price against the cheapest in-policy option.
- The traveler's justification, when the option is out of policy.
- The history: every request, decision, note and change, also kept in the audit log.
Budgets
Budgets per program, tracked in reports
Set a budget for each department (for a nonprofit, usually each program) and period, and reports compare it with actual spend.
Budgets are a reporting tool: approvers decide on the trip in front of them, and finance and program leads watch spend against budget in reports.
Questions
Common questions
Who approves a trip?
The traveler's named approver. If a traveler has none, any travel manager can decide.
What if the approver is away?
Approvers can delegate to someone else for set dates.
What does the approver see?
The trip, the price against the cheapest in-policy option, the justification and the approval history.
Can we book for board members and guests?
Yes. Visitors such as board members, speakers and participants can be booked as guest travelers, billed to the right department and project.
Is there a live demo?
Yes. The silentVIP live demo shows approvals working on a fictional company.
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