More than Just a Report: How Monitoring in Context is Essential

The BCBS of Western New York case study featured in Business Travel News is a nice example of realizing the benefits of “inspecting what is expected”. The BCBS automated reporting system reaps the benefits of the Hawthorne Effect where people behave differently when they know they are being watched. Pre-pay compliance monitoring is a great best practice for leading T&E programs. The next step is to automate the process for analyzing transactions based on behavior, such as:

• Are the expenses classified correctly based on the purchases? 
• How do purchases for the current period compare to past purchase behaviors
• How do the behaviors of other travelers in the organization compare based on position and geography? 

Understanding not only the context of a single expense report, but also the context of the single report in relation to all other reports for the same period, as well as other reports submitted previously by the same traveler, is crucial to having a complete understanding of compliance with travel policy and practice. Leading organizations are leveraging on demand monitoring and analysis solutions to cost effectively take their compliance monitoring to the next level.