Corporations Take Full Control of their T&E Spending with KDS Corporate’s Latest Version

Hot Tags: 5.6 | corporate

February 3, 2004 – KDS, the leading provider of online business travel management solutions, today announces the release of KDS Corporate Version 5.6. KDS’s complete solution for automated and integrated travel and expense management delivers to decision-makers a comprehensive real-time MIS reporting and analysis of all travel and expense (T&E) spending, whether business trips are booked through KDS Corporate or via a travel management company.

KDS’s New Powerful Web Reporting Features Empower of Unified Online and Offline T&E Data

With Version 5.6, KDS Corporate has been further enhanced to maximise corporate travel savings and T&E-related cost reductions. KDS reinforces its market leadership with new innovative travel and expense features meeting both suppliers’ ongoing evolution and customers’ business demands.

Firstly, KDS powers its unique and comprehensive online solution with two key modules that enhance existing reporting and synchronization features:

KDS MIS Reporting: a powerful tool for generating in-depth travel and expense data web reports which facilitate decision-makers’ control and ongoing optimisation of the company’s T&E spending,
KDS PNR Sync: an innovative engine that synchronizes both online reservations (pre-trip data) and offline booking information captured from the travel agency data in order to deliver a global view of all the company’s travel bookings.

"Gathering complete online and offline travel information is a long and arduous process for corporations. As a result, financial and purchasing management often have a blurry image of their T&E related costs. Only the best online travel and expense management solutions, offering both extended financial reporting features and travel costs easy aggregation tools, will enable corporations to take back control over their T&E spending and their suppliers," said Herman Mensink Business Travel Management Expert and Associate Professor Business Travel & Airline Economics at the NHTV BREDA University in the Netherlands.

Secondly, KDS has enriched its solution with new Travel and Expense features. Users will enjoy a more intuitive navigation throughout the whole T&E process; from travel planning, approval and online booking to capture and reimbursement of related expense reports. A set of leading-edge features for PNR management (the Passenger Name Record is the booking’s reference) delivers travel agents a fully automated reservation (“Touchless”) that doesn’t need any extra work and enables travellers to modify any travel information in their bookings, themselves.

Moreover, KDS has added new travel sources to provide even more choices to users, such as train and low-costs carriers, as well as access to more ticketing options. KDS brings a new type of travel policy rules to adapt to suppliers’ ever-changing pricing. Finally, KDS has developed a dedicated engine to seamlessly and flexibly manage accounting and reimbursement rules within KDS Corporate in accordance with American, British and German legislations.

KDS Corporate Version 5.6 also brings specific answers to UK corporate travellers’ requirements:

A reporting feature to facilitate P11D fulfilment, P11D is a statement of employee benefits paid within the financial year requested by British Inland Revenue regulations.
A new partnership has been signed with The Trainline to plan and book UK rail tickets (For more information, please read the KDS and trainline.com press release).
A new direct link to Eurostar, KDS Direct Link for Eurostar, developed in cooperation with Eurostar and SNCF teams. The solution performs online booking directly for Eurostar trains on the Eurostar/SNCF CRS system and fulfilment with the ELGAR system.
KDS Corporate Version 5.6 supports the booking of British Airways’ new cabin class: Premier Economy.
KDS Corporate now provides extended abilities to support ticketless airlines and low-costs carriers via GDSs. This concerns companies like bmibaby, Virgin Express, Volareweb.com, Hapag-Lloyd, Germanwings, etc.

“With the latest version of KDS Corporate, KDS continues to meet corporations’ growing demand for total transparency over their T&E spending,” said Yves Weisselberger KDS CEO. “KDS Corporate gives both CFOs and purchasing managers a clear dashboard to monitor and control what is spent in Travel and Expense, both via their online tool and through their travel agency.”

KDS Corporate is the only fully integrated application that seamlessly automates both travel booking and expense reporting online. It provides a true end-to-end control frame over the T&E business process to corporate executives. In addition, using the same tool to book trips and fill expense reporting accelerates T&E costs reductions.

KDS Corporate Version 5.6 is available this spring 2004.

About KDS
KDS is a leading provider of online business travel management solutions. In order to dramatically reduce travel cost, KDS provides corporations with a unique online solution to optimise and automate travel procurement and expense management. KDS Corporate is the first software to integrate expense reporting to business travel management in a single automated information system. KDS’s flagship product deals with all processes related to business travel and expenses from budget authorization, travel planning and booking to expense reporting. KDS customers include Accenture, Alstom, Autodesk, BP, Caterpillar, Galileo, Gray Dawes, Novartis, Shell, Veolia Environnement. Founded in 1994, KDS maintains offices in the US, UK, France and Germany.

KDS Corporate Version 5.6

Technical information on new modules and features:

KDS MIS Reporting provides numerous reports on the T&E data and processes for executive and operational managers (financial, accounting, purchasing and travel departments). Today, KDS provides KDS MIS Reporting with 35 key reports. Added features and extra reports will be available with future versions of KDS Corporate.

The current reports offer management the capability to track the relevant information for their follow-up and control activities:

Example of reports for CFO and accountants:

Totals of pending expense reports for accountants to forecast accruals,
VAT spending by country for optimised VAT recovery
Total spending by expense type (transportations, lodging, meals…), cost centre, period and geographical area.

Examples of reports for purchasing and travel managers:

Online travel tool penetration: Global adoption rate of online versus offline bookings (with KDS PNR Sync), Average fare by booking mode, online or offline
Travel policy enforcement ratio: Compliancy rate, Lost savings due to non-compliant travel choices
Spending per suppliers

KDS PNR Sync captures travel data generated outside KDS Corporate - offline bookings such as those made over the phone by travel agents - and aggregates them with the online travel information. In other words, KDS Corporate gathers all the Passenger Name Record (PNR) information into a single database, whatever their origin. This new module provides a complete analysis of T&E spending so that KDS’s customers visualize its global picture and monitor it in consequence.

With Version 5.6, KDS also provides more efficiency for travellers with improved ergonomics. KDS has now added:

Intuitive navigation for the travellers: the travellers are driven throughout the same interface from travel planning and booking to the associated expenses to facilitate expense report completion and save the time-consuming administrative tasks related to business travel.
Easier, quicker and more informed car booking process: The car booking process has been fully reviewed and optimised for ease and speed of use as well as to maintain a consistent booking approach with transport (air/train): one-step one-click booking process, display of various car types and rental suppliers based on travel policy and user preferences, quick choice for pick-up location via a drop down menu option.