Center adds travel to card-first expense solution

BELLEVUE, WASH. – Center, a software company modernizing expense management, announced the integration of travel into their core real-time expense solution. The new travel management experience includes travel booking, servicing, and support powered by Spotnana‘s cloud-based Travel-as-a-Service platform.

Travel is typically the second highest business expense for companies behind payroll, and a historically difficult cost to control. Mastercard reports that upwards of 40% of travel spend leaks out of managed travel programs and into consumer tools, creating compliance issues and reconciliation complexity. Center’s card-first experience, now with integrated travel, enables unified travel and expense policy management and real-time visibility into on and off-program travel spend.

“For any business seeking tighter control of the bottom line, a patchwork employee expense system does not address the tidal shift to decentralized purchasing patterns that have become dominant,” said Naveen Singh, CEO of Center. “Customers point to a lack of control and visibility, cumbersome processes, limited inventory, and high cost of ownership as pain points of current managed travel offerings. We’re addressing that with an all-in-one travel and expense solution that streamlines the booking and expensing experience for employees, and enables complete visibility and control for finance teams.”

The launch of Center’s integrated travel and expense solution is in response to the frustration the company heard from customers who experience high levels of spend leakage and poor service from their existing products. Center’s travel features solve these pain points by using Spotnana’s modern travel infrastructure to provide the richest travel inventory on the market, self-service itinerary changes, and expert customer service, and reflects the company’s commitment to providing the best card-first experience across all major corporate spend categories.

Center’s expanded support for travel empowers mid-market finance and accounting managers to further streamline expense processing with an even broader set of capabilities, including the following:

Integrated Data & Policy – Universal travel and expense policy application enables every employee expense, including off-program travel bookings, to be run through corporate policies in real time, ensuring fast approvals and saving finance teams valuable time on month-end close.
Consumer-Grade Booking Experience – Comprehensive, unbiased global travel inventory at competitive prices, self-service trip changes, automated redemption of unused ticket credits, and 24/7 access to expert travel agents allows travelers to book and manage trips more efficiently. Robust guest traveler support extends this experience to contractors or other non-employees.
Increased Automation & Intelligence – Booking receipts are automatically attached to corresponding expenses, improving expense categorization accuracy and helping enforce sound traveler buying behaviors.
Single Solution Deployment – Dedicated deployment managers with over 50 years of combined spend management experience ensure the seamless rollout of an integrated travel and expense solution. Designed to be self-service and backed by ongoing first-class support, Center is easily customized to a business’ accounting practices and approval workflows with minimal customer lift.
Reimbursements and Virtual Cards – Full-featured solution includes the ability to manage reimbursements and safely issue unlimited physical and virtual cards, providing teams with end-to-end control over the travel and expense process.
Usage-Based Pricing – Businesses only pay for what they use with no license, deployment, integration, or support fees. All-inclusive, flat travel booking fee covers unlimited itinerary changes and expert 24/7 support.

“We’re delighted to partner with Center and provide the core infrastructure that powers travel for their customers,” said Sarosh Waghmar, Founder and CEO of Spotnana. “By leveraging our comprehensive travel APIs and advanced white labeling capabilities, Center has created a seamless end-to-end travel and expense solution that increases traveler satisfaction and delivers exceptional value.”

“We chose to centralize our disparate corporate card program into one platform to give us greater visibility and control over employee spending,” said Gina Fryer, Vice President of Finance at AMAROK, an industry-leading perimeter security solutions provider. “With Center, we were able to streamline expense workflows top to bottom, and integrated travel helped us improve policy compliance across all corporate travel spend. The solution is fast, intuitive and similar to the tools I use for personal travel, providing a full inventory of booking options. Center’s flexible, usage-based model helps us keep costs down by only paying for what we need.”

The article Center adds travel to card-first expense solution first appeared in TravelDailyNews International.