How to make a business travel report + free template for 2023

Travel managers and those in charge of organizing business trips will need their travelers to submit a business travel report. This printable business travel report template gives travel managers an overview of expenses and budgets to help improve future business travel.

The business trip report is crucial for the company. It’s an important management tool to facilitate budgeting, reporting, and auditing of costs. Put simply, it ensures the company has a comprehensive view of the trip, which in turn helps towards accurate reporting and overall improvement. 

Before we get to our business travel report template, let’s take a look at what information you should include and why.

Business trip overview

Here you will give an executive summary of the business trip including: 

• The purpose of the trip
• Travel destination
• Duration of the trip
• Participating employees

Plus any other information needed to summarize the trip.

Trip itinerary

The trip itinerary collects information on the places visited, flight tickets used, hotels booked, and car rental information to enable efficient expense reporting.

In case you’re looking for a business trip itinerary template, you can check our fully-customizable template for business travel itinerary–best of all it’s free to download and ready to use.

Meetings, events, and activities

Now that you’ve established all the important information about the trip, transport, and accommodation, you’ll need to specify the different activities, meetings, and events that took place.

Expense report

In this section you’ll present the expenses—including amounts and payment methods used—to enable the finance team to accurately report expenditures and process any necessary reimbursements. 

Attachments and documents

This part of the report can be divided into two important categories:

• Invoices and receipts: all the proof of each one of the expenses made
• Other relevant documents: contracts, certificates, and declarations that were produced during the business trip 

In this last section you can mention important things that happened during the trip, feedback about issues encountered, and whether there are any important follow-up actions for the activities taken during the trip.

Get your business travel report template

Compiling a business travel report is easier with a premade template—just plug your travel information into the relevant section. While using travel report templates is helpful—it’s not the best way to get the job done.

Filling out endless reports could be a thing of the past with a travel management platform like TravelPerk. The platform enables you to book and manage your travel, and automatically creates a business travel report following any trip. 

You can connect it with your expense management solution to include expenditure details, and automatically compile travel reports that make life easier for everyone involved—travel managers, traveling employees, and your finance team. Try TravelPerk today to experience simpler business travel management and reporting. If you’re not quite ready to make the leap—take a look at our ready-to-go business travel template below or head over to our customizable version to get started in a flash.