Paperless Work: Comtravo and Circula making business travel digital

Press release from Circula regarding partnership with Comtravo

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Berlin, 18th of August, 2020. A new record: 190 million German companies sent their employees on business trips in 2019. According to the figures provided by the German Business Travel Association (VDR) employers spent 53.5 billion Euros on this. In recent months, however, business trips have come to a standstill and videoconferencing has become the norm rather than business trips. But one thing is clear: for such a strong export nation as Germany, business trips remain an important tool for success and, according to the VDR, around 83 percent of companies are allowing business trips again - though under new conditions. It is particularly interesting that companies not only focused on the new travel regulations and hygiene measures, but also questioned their previous processes during the Corona lockdown. The aim: to make business travel more efficient and to check which areas can also be digitized.

German business travelers and travel managers have clear expectations about this: According to a VDR study, 80 percent want complete mobile availability of all booking channels and over 70 percent want comprehensive integration of digital payment and billing solutions - without additional effort. To eliminate the paper chaos in German offices, the two Berlin-based technology companies Circula and Comtravo are now offering an end-to-end process for business travel: every customer can now implement all processes from booking to travel expense reporting completely in a digital manner.

Cooperation Taking Digital Travel Management to the Next Level

Comtravo simplifies and automates the booking process of business trips. With the help of an innovative solution, travelers can book complete business trips including flights, hotels, train rides and rental cars with just a few clicks. Bookings can be made through different channels depending on preference - via email, online booking tools or over the phone. All options are individually tailored to the needs of the company or traveler. For example, travel policies, such as travel classes, or preferences, such as window or aisle seats, are saved to the company’s profile and are then automatically selected with every booking. This offers a successful combination of automation and a personal service. The automation ensures simple and fast processes. This saves money. There is also someone to contact in case a problem arises such as flight cancellation or lost luggage.

Integration Enables Digital Travel Expense Accounting

In addition to booking and managing business travel, Comtravo also offers digital travel expense reporting via the new interface to Circula, a GoBD-compliant SaaS solution for digital travel and expense reporting. This enables Circula to generate automated travel expense reports including any additional expenses for meals. Travelers can fill in their travel expenses, such as hospitality receipts and PDF bills, and submit their bills in real time and while on the road. The travelers are happy about the time saved - financial accountants and controllers also benefit from the audit-proof digitalization and gain a complete insight of the company’s costs.

The Software-as-a-Service solution from Circula is specifically aimed at the requirements of medium-sized companies in Germany. Business trips are a central component here. Therefore, Nikolai Skatchkov, founder and CEO of Circula, is particularly pleased about the integration.

"Thanks to the cooperation of the platforms, companies can now offer their business travelers smart solutions for all aspects of the business travel processes and not only increase employee satisfaction, but also effectively reduce costs"

"At Comtravo, we want our complete system to set industry-wide standards in travel management, providing convenience to business travelers and transparency to employers. Therefore, we are pleased to be working with Circula to add a strong partner to our portfolio and to offer our customers an even better service",says Michael Riegel, CEO of Comtravo.

About Circula

Circula offers medium-sized and internationally oriented companies a Software-as-a-Service solution for the digital travel expense accounting. Thanks to its intuitive user interface and AI-based technologies, receipts can be processed in real time and, for the first time, Circula can be used to digitally archive GoBD-compliant documents.

The award-winning (KPMG, Visa, PwC) technology company was founded in Berlin in 2017. Numerous innovative companies such as N26, Onefootball TeamViewer and hundreds of other medium-sized companies already rely on the solution provided by Circula. More information available at: www.circula.com.

About Comtravo

Comtravo is a platform for booking business trips. Comtravo's software converts requests in text form, such as emails, into structured data using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and uses AI technologies to offer the best possible travel options based on previously specified preferences and previous booking behavior. With one click, personalized offers can be booked within an email. Comtravo was founded in 2015 by Michael Riegel, Jannik Neumann and Marko Schilde and an experienced team from the travel and internet industry. Today, Comtravo employs a team of 110 people. Over 700 medium-sized companies in the German-speaking regions of Europe use Comtravo.

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