Pay for Hotels Your Way with Engine Direct Bill

When it comes to booking hotels for workforce travel, managing payments is one of the biggest challenges that comes up. Particularly when you’ve got multiple crews staying near various job sites, it can take hours of effort to reconcile charges and process reimbursements — not to mention the risk of fraud or maxing out lines of credit when company cards are used.  There’s a better way.  Engine is pleased to offer qualifying members a Direct Bill option that places all reservations on a single line of credit, to be paid off in a single lump invoice. Direct Bill streamlines the process every step of the way: from booking to check-in to reconciliation.

What is Direct Bill?

The Direct Bill program extends members a line of credit, which can be used to pay for all reservations booked on Engine. Direct Bill can be used as a payment method to book any of the 700,000+ properties on the platform. It can even be used to cover incidentals.  All charges are conveniently added to a single invoice, to be paid off in one lump sum.  Let’s take a look at how Direct Bill saves time and hassle for everyone.

Direct Bill for Travelers

Requiring travelers to pay for their own lodging and reimbursing them can be an arduous process. Travelers’ personal funds get tied up while waiting for reimbursement to be processed. Receipts must be saved and properly submitted. And there’s always the risk that travelers won’t adhere to company travel policies when booking.  Direct Bill streamlines the entire process for travelers, significantly reducing the headaches involved in traveling for work. There’s no need for them to spend their own money or request and save itemized receipts. And by setting role-specific Travel Policies and enabling Direct Bill, you can even empower employees to book hotels according to their own preferences, without exceeding established nightly budgets.  

Direct Bill for Admins

Booking lodging on behalf of traveling teams can be one of the most time-consuming tasks on administrators’ plates. Finding a suitable hotel, negotiating rates, booking rooms and faxing credit card authorization forms adds up to a long and tedious process. And what do you do if there’s not enough credit on the company card during a busy travel season?  When booking with Engine and using Direct Bill, much of that manual effort can be skipped. There’s no need for authorizations, and businesses even have the option to let travelers book their own rooms.

Direct Bill for Accounting and Finance

A major benefit to Direct Bill is the ability to streamline the reconciliation process and get instant, customized invoices for all of your travelers. Gone are the days of chasing after receipts from traveling employees or depending on them to enter their appropriate expenses for reimbursement!  Itemized folios will appear instantly in the Engine platform for quick and easy download. Plus, a custom coding option allows receipts to be labeled with custom fields that work for your business. Instantly code receipts by job name/number, PO, tax-exempt status and more to skip the manual effort of organizing folios.  When the invoice is received, you will have a few options for payment — ACH/wire transfer or check. The payment method is established up front, but members can always change it or update information as needed.

Ready to Save Time on Booking and Billing?

Engine helps you take back control of your reservations, reporting and payments. Sign up for your free Engine account today to see how you can save money and time with Direct Bill and plenty of other helpful tools designed to streamline your workforce lodging program.  

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