Overview
This article introduces Ramp Travel, outlining the steps for setting up and enforcing travel policies, managing bookings, and overseeing travel expenditures. It explains how admins can configure policies for flights and hotels, including dynamic rules based on market rates and approval processes for out-of-policy bookings. Additionally, the article provides guidance on turning Ramp Travel on for employees, tracking trips and expenses, and addresses common FAQs related to travel booking and policy enforcement. See video guide on how to set up travel policy and manage travel on Ramp.
Jump to:
- Overview
- Setting up your policy
- Enforcing your policy
- Turning Ramp Travel booking on
- Overseeing trips and travel spend
- FAQ's
Setting up your policy
Ramp Travel enables you to set up robust controls to inform your employees which flights and hotels are out of policy when booking and also to alert your team when out-of-policy bookings occur.
To set up your travel policy on Ramp, navigate to Expenses & travel > Travel > Manage > Travel Policy.
You can set:
- Dynamic rules based on market rate to determine when a flight or hotel is in policy
- Noting that this rule only applies to bookings made on Ramp
- The market rate is considered a fair price for your search. It is calculated by 1. scanning all flights for the route/hotels for the destination and dates of your search, 2. excluding booking options not suited for the travel business, and 3. computing the market rate on the filtered inventory
- The maximum amount an employee is allowed to spend on a flight or a hotel
- How far in advance they need to book their travel
- What cabin classes are allowed
- Require refundable hotel room bookings
- Maximum per diem spend (includes restaurants, alcohol and bars, supermarket and groceries, entertainment)
- Option to enable GSA rates (location-based per diem)
- Find out more about per diem here
Create multiple travel policies for your company based on a variety of conditions such as Ramp role, department, location and more in Travel Policy (scroll to the bottom). Available for Ramp Plus customers only.
Enforcing your policy
When your employees search for flights or hotels using Ramp Travel, Ramp will denote which flights or hotels are out of your company's policy as they search on their end.
When an employee spends out of policy, notifications will be sent out to transaction approvers to review the out-of-policy spend. Please note that Ramp Travel Policies will not decline transactions but notify managers and administrators of out-of-policy spend.
Admins can set up what bookings require approval before employees book travel on Ramp by navigating to Ramp Travel settings. Select from 3 available templates: require approval for out-of-policy bookings, always require approval, or or set up custom logic where admins can configure different conditions and actions.
For example, an admin has set up a travel policy of max $500 / night for hotels and an approval policy to require approval for all out-of-policy bookings. When an employee tries to book a hotel for $600 / night, they won't be able to book directly without the manager's approval. They would submit a request instead of booking, which would trigger a notification to their manager. Once their manager approves, the booking will go through and employees will receive a booking confirmation email. It is possible that the price of booking would change from the time of request, and managers would see the price changes and can decide to approve or reject.
Users can now request for new funds at the end of the booking flow if they have insufficient spend or do not have an available card. By default, all spend requests require manager approval. Admins can modify this by setting up custom logic under Booking Requests settings.
Turning Ramp Travel booking on for Employees
Booking travel on Ramp is not turned on by default for your company's employees. As an admin, you will need to navigate to your Travel Policy and Travel Homepage (Expenses > Travel > Manage > Settings).
If you wish to turn off Ramp Travel for everyone, including admins, select the nobody option. You can always revisit this page to turn Ramp Travel back on!
Once Ramp Travel has been enabled, your team will be able to access travel booking by navigating to My Ramp > Travel, or by clicking "Book Travel" on their My Ramp page. Employees who book using Ramp Travel will additionally receive automatically generated receipts attached to their transactions and memos created.
Employees can also book travel on behalf of someone else. See Travel Delegate Booking via Assistant Role for more details.
Note: If you do not see "Ramp Travel" section where you can enable Ramp Travel for admins and/or employees, please reach out to your Account Manager or email travel-feedback@ramp.com.
Overseeing trips and travel spend
Administrators on Ramp have the ability to oversee all travel spend at their companies, and managers have the ability to oversee travel spend for their reports on Ramp. You can view your team's upcoming, active, and completed trips by navigating to Expenses & travel > Travel. You can additionally edit your Travel policy directly from this tab as well.
Leveraging the map on the top, you can see active trips that your employees are on, and which locations they are traveling to:
Clicking on an employee will let you see all of the expenses that are tied to their trip, including flights, hotels, and per diem spend.
As an admin or a manager, you also can edit an employee's trip, add expenses to a trip, or submit reimbursements on behalf of an employee. If you see a transaction that doesn't belong as part of a trip, simply click the kebab icon next to the transaction and click "Remove Expense". For more details about a transaction, click "View Expense Details".
Ramp will provide insights to you such as cashback accrued, average trip cost, expensive trips, and more.
Clicking the download icon on the table will provide you with a CSV containing even more details, such as reporting on total per diem spend, flight spend, hotel spend, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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We have negotiated rates with a hotel. Are you able to support our negotiated rates?
- We cannot support negotiated rates at this time. However, we partner with Priceline, which has negotiated rates for hotels.
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Can I set a default, or favorited hotel for my team to book at?
- Not at this time, but we are working on adding similar features!
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What is the refund process for canceled flights?
- Fully Refundable Fares: If a fully refundable fare is canceled, the refund will be credited back to your Ramp card, regardless of when or where the cancellation occurs.
- Standard Fares: These fares are typically non-refundable but can be changed. Canceling a standard fare will usually result in receiving a credit from the specific airline (e.g., a Delta credit).
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How long does my team have to cancel a flight or a hotel?
- Most flights have a 24-hour cancellation policy. However, depending on the cabin class, you can have refundable or adjustable flights. Most refundable hotels allow you to cancel up to 48 hours before your stay.