Trains, planes and expense reports.

• Author: Sexton, Shirley
• Position: Equifax Inc.'s business travel program - Management Strategy

What do you do when you have a ballooning business travel budget and a less-than-perfect reporting system? Try centralized travel purchasing and accounting, as Equifax did. Here's the company's unique template for controlling its travel costs.

A year ago, the national average room rate for an Equifax traveler was $125. This year, the average is $88, the result of negotiations with several hotel chains. And, by the first quarter of 1994, we plan to release a corporate directory of hotels that offer rates negotiated with Equifax that will help us reduce our hotel expense by at least $400,000 annually.

How are we doing it? We've revamped our business travel program, so that our travel department manages travel purchasing and reimbursement functions and reports directly to the corporate controller. In this way, we get the entire picture. Most companies' travel departments only book reservations. Since we also handle the reimbursement after associates complete their travel, our travel department knows what's actually being spent and can closely monitor all expenditures.

MULTIPLICATION AT ITS BEST

In March of 1992, Equifax spearheaded a cost-reduction effort that included centralizing the travel purchasing function. We hired a travel manager and contracted with only one travel agency, instead of several, which helped build the company's buying power. That made it easier to negotiate hotel, airline and car rental prices. We also planned to centralize and standardize the accounting and expense reporting.

Now that we're working exclusively with one travel agency, 18 people, including me, work on-site in Equifax's business travel department. Eight people are Equifax associates, and the other 10 are contractors who work for our travel agency. Eight travel agents book reservations with one ticket processor. The agents and the ticket processor report to an on-site branch manager from the travel agency, who in turn reports to Equifax's director of travel. Having everyone on-site makes following up on exceptions to any of our policies much easier.

We've set up the company's quality control system so that, for example, when airfares drop after an associate has already made his reservations, we can alert that associate up to the date of his departure. If the reduced fare is substantially lower, the associate's director telephones the traveler and encourages him to accept the lowest-fare flight.

The travel department calls an average of two associates per...