Travel approvals are a notorious corporate bottleneck. An employee needs to book a flight quickly. They submit the request, and then the waiting game begins. The request bounces from manager to finance to a department head. Each stop adds hours, sometimes days, to the process. By the time the final approval comes, the cost of the flight has gone up, or the traveler has missed the necessary booking window.

This back-and-forth is more than just an inconvenience. It causes stress, wastes productivity, and directly increases travel costs. The core problem is a linear, multi-step approval workflow that relies too heavily on human intervention at every stage.

You can eliminate this inefficiency. The solution is to redesign your process to be parallel, automated, and policy-driven. Before we get into that, let's explore some mistakes you might be making.

Mistake One: Approving The Trip and The Cost Separately

Many companies require a manager to approve the trip's necessity, followed by a separate approval from Finance for the cost. This often leads to a pointless loop. The manager approves the idea, but then Finance rejects the cost because the estimate is too high. The request goes back to the employee, who adjusts the estimate, and then it goes back to the manager, and so on.

This multi-signature sequence on a single document guarantees delays. Each person handles the request sequentially, and each rejection forces a restart.

The Fix: Parallel Approval Paths

Do not make approvers wait for each other. Design a system where the necessity check and the financial check happen at the same time.

1. Split the Authority

Identify the two core questions that must be answered:

Question A (Necessity): Does this person need to travel for a legitimate business reason? (Answered by the Direct Manager or Project Lead).
Question B (Compliance): Does the estimated cost of this trip fall within the established budget and policy limits? (Answered by the Financial Approver or System).

When the employee submits the trip request, the system should route the request to both parties simultaneously. The Direct Manager reviews the purpose, and the Financial Approver reviews the budget—all at the same time.

If both parties approve their respective parts, the trip is instantly authorized. If one rejects it, the employee receives the full feedback immediately, avoiding a redundant second review.

2. Introduce Cost Thresholds

To reduce the approval chain further, use cost tiers to eliminate unnecessary signatures. Most trips should not require Finance approval.

For instance, any trip estimated under $500 only requires the Direct Manager's approval. Since the cost is low, the manager can verify both the necessity and the reasonableness of the expense. This simple threshold instantly frees up the Finance team from reviewing the majority of small, routine trips.

Mistake Two: Approving Choices Instead of Limits

A major reason for back-and-forth is when managers are asked to approve specific booking choices. An employee submits a request to fly on Airline X and stay at Hotel Y. If the manager rejects the specific choices, the request bounces back to the employee for a new submission with different options.

This is a failure of policy enforcement. Managers should not have to manually check every flight price or hotel rate against the rules.

The Fix: Policy-Driven Booking

The travel system itself should enforce the policy, making the booking choices compliant by default. This changes the manager's role from a choice auditor to a policy gatekeeper.

1. Pre-Screening Options

Use a platform that applies your company’s travel policy at the point of sale. When the employee searches for travel, the system should automatically filter the results to show only options that are compliant with their role and travel rules.

If the maximum hotel rate in Chicago is $200, the system should only display hotels at or below that price. The manager is then approving a compliant itinerary, not a set of high-cost choices. This ensures that the options the employee submits are already financially sound.

2. Approving Exceptions, Not the Norm

If an employee needs to book outside of policy (e.g., a last-minute flight is more expensive than the limit), the system should automatically flag the booking as an exception. The employee must then provide a mandatory justification note.

The manager then receives the request with the note: "Out-of-policy hotel: Budget $180, Actual $250, Justification: Conference hotel required for networking." The manager is now making one clear decision: Approve the exception or deny it. This eliminates the back-and-forth of searching for new options.

Mistake Three: Manual Follow-Up and Status Checks

A significant amount of time is wasted by travelers constantly asking, "Has my request been approved yet?" and managers having to manually search their inbox or folder for the request. This manual follow-up is a huge productivity drain and introduces stress.

When travelers lack visibility into the process, they become anxious and resort to email or instant message nudges, which distracts the approvers further.

The Fix: Visibility and Automation

Implement a system that provides real-time status updates and uses automated reminders to move the process along.

1. Automated Status Pages

The employee should have a single dashboard where they can see the exact status of their request at any moment. The status should be clear, such as:

Pending Manager Approval (A)
Pending Finance Review (B)
Fully Approved (C)

This visibility immediately answers the "where is my request?" question without relying on human follow-up. It shifts the burden of tracking from the employee to the system.

2. Systemic Nudges for Approvers

Approvers are busy. Their inboxes are full. If a request sits in an approval queue for too long, the system should automatically take action.

Set clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for approval times—for instance, 12 hours for a manager, 4 hours for a financial approver. If a request exceeds the time limit, the system should automatically send a gentle, automated reminder to the approver. This is much more effective and less awkward than a direct email from the employee.

For urgent, time-sensitive trips, the system can be configured to escalate the request to the manager's direct supervisor after a certain period of inaction, ensuring a critical trip is never missed.

The Ultimate Fix: The "Book First" Option

The most effective way to eliminate back-and-forth approvals is to make the approval irrelevant for compliant bookings. This may sound like a loss of control, but it is actually a strategic way to grant autonomy while keeping a tight financial leash.

The Concept of Pre-Approved Spending

For low-risk, compliant travel, move to a Book First, Approve Later process. This is only possible if the policy is strictly enforced by the booking platform.

If an employee uses the corporate booking tool and selects a flight and hotel that the system verifies are 100 percent in policy (meeting all price caps, vendor requirements, and class restrictions), the booking is made immediately. The ticket is issued and the room is reserved.

The manager then receives an FYI approval notification afterward. The manager reviews the already-booked trip to confirm necessity. If the trip was necessary, the approval is simply logged. If the trip was unnecessary, the booking is already made, but the manager addresses the necessity issue through coaching, not by canceling a reservation.

Benefits of Booking First

Instantaneous Booking: The employee secures the best price and saves time.
Cost Control Maintained: The cost is controlled by the policy limits in the system, not the human approval speed. The company is guaranteed to be paying a compliant price.
Manager Time Saved: Managers are only involved when the policy is violated or for strategic review, not for every routine booking.

This strategy requires a high level of trust in your automated system but is the fastest way to get your travelers moving efficiently.

Reviewing and Refining the New Flow

Once you implement parallel paths and automated checks, you must regularly review the process to ensure it is working efficiently. This is not a static solution; it requires ongoing calibration.

Track Approval Lag Times

Use the data from your travel system to track the average approval time for both managers and financial approvers.

If the average approval time for the Finance team is consistently eight hours, but the internal goal is four hours, you can investigate the specific bottleneck. Is the financial approver too busy? Are they spending too much time reviewing one specific type of expense?

Tracking these metrics allows you to adjust resources or simplify the policy further to meet speed targets.

Gather Direct User Feedback

Talk to your frequent travelers and managers. Ask them where the process is still sticking. Simple questions like "Where did you get stuck last month?" can reveal hidden friction points that technology alone cannot solve.

For example, you might find that managers are confused about who to forward the request to when they are out of the office. This feedback allows HR to create better, simpler training and documentation for the exception process.

By moving from a cumbersome linear process to a fast, parallel, and policy-driven system, you empower your travelers, respect your managers’ time, and ensure financial control. This eliminates the dreaded approval back-and-forth forever.

Ready to streamline your entire corporate travel process?

Learn more about how to eliminate approval delays and control costs by visiting the TripDesk website, or find more articles like this one for travel tips on our blog

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