What Is A Business Trip Report And How To Prepare One

Business trips are essential for meeting the organization’s goals besides improving brand awareness. A business trip report is a post-trip activity essential to know the outcome of the business trip vis-à-vis its objectives. Employees need not perceive the corporate trip report as a tedious activity. They can use the trip report to highlight their achievements and enhance their reputation.

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What is a Business Trip (or Business Travel) Report?

A business trip report, or a business travel report, summarizes the business trip to justify travel expenses. It reviews activities to fulfill pre-defined business objectives, such as finalizing a business deal, providing technical service to a customer, or representing the organization at a trade fair.

Travel managers can review business reports based on the following criteria:
Improving networking and customer relationships
Training objectives, such as certification
Identifying and attracting prospects for new business opportunities
Knowing new business trends
Attending company conferences or review meetings
Imparting training to business associates
Customer business travel support
Assessing the competition

Business travel reporting activity helps understand to what extent the trip met the trip objectives. It enables travel managers to change policies to improve the efficiency of business travel.

Suggested Read: All You Need To Know About Corporate Travel Management

The Importance of a corporate trip report

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A corporate trip report is necessary to justify the cost of business travel. It is a critical summary to enable reporting, auditing, and business travel budgeting. Business trip reporting helps travel managers monitor, track, and control travel costs. They can leverage the knowledge to enhance the effectiveness of future business trips.

An ideal trip report provides a detailed review of the particular business travel report and is a vital instrument for understanding the justification of the trip expenses. The business trip report comprises many details, such as graphs, tables, photographs, and other documents supporting the claim by justifying the travel expenditure.

How to write a business report?

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1. Preparations

Preparations for writing a stunning business trip report begin before proceeding on a business trip. Note the core business goal of the business trip you expect to meet. The entire trip itinerary will focus on accomplishing this goal. You may achieve other benefits during your business trip, such as referrals from existing customers you visited for an after-sales service job.

The measure of the trip’s success will depend upon the details and supportive documents you provide while submitting the trip report. Continue noting down all details about your achievements as your business trip progresses. Collecting bills or receipts is an essential prerequisite to facilitate expense reporting. Platforms like Paxes can help you with the necessary travel data and invoices needed to back your report. Remember to get snaps and video clips of important events besides documentary evidence of your achievements, like feedback forms to justify your accomplishments.

2. Headings and essential details

Mention the core purpose in the first section of a business trip report. Include the cities and places you covered with dates. Mention the names of colleagues if they accompanied you on the trip. List the names of prospects, customers, and business associates you met on the business trip. The heading section should provide a quick introduction to the trip report with the total cost of the business trip.

3. Introduction of the report

A general overview of the business trip is an essential feature of the introduction. Let the introduction outline the goal and the results of the business trip. Mention the places you covered and the people you met with the outcome. One should briefly describe the activities such as attending the exhibition stall, highlighting product benefits, meeting prospects, or attending seminars. Focus on how you accomplished the trip’s aim without providing data or supportive documents.

4. Business trip report’s body

The main section of the business report is the body. You should provide details of the activities that helped you meet your business objectives. By providing reasons, you should also reveal if you could not achieve a few goals. One should add any other achievements, not part of the trip’s original objectives. You should explain how the achievement can benefit the organization.

5. Summary of the report

The summary justifies the consumption of resources to cover the trip. Share your observations by mentioning how the business trip will help the organization win more customers, increase sales revenues, or improve the company’s brand awareness. The summary should focus on the expected rise in the business to help travel managers know the ROI from the business trip. The report should Include attachments like data, snaps, and customer feedback reports that will help support your accomplishments.

Conclusion

Organizations use the business trip report to know the return on travel costs. Business travel reporting is the art of presenting your achievements systematically. Providing details and supporting these with data or documents is the key to writing a perfect business report. The business report should be crisp and clear, presenting the trip’s purpose, activities, learnings, and recommendations. Further, travel and expense management platforms such as Paxes offer easy and quick booking of flights and hotels. Additionally, the expenditure data provided in these platforms can help one in preparing a comprehensive business trip report.

Business Trip Report FAQs

Who should receive the corporate trip report of the employee?

Employees submit a corporate trip report to line managers, or corporate travel managers, depending upon the policy.

What should a business trip report not include?

The business trip report should not include personal experiences, like visiting a tourist spot, having dinner with colleagues, or detailed notes. Avoid lengthy descriptions of the event or venue.

Is there a standard format for writing a corporate trip report?

The ideal format is the headline, introduction, body, and summary. However, some organizations expect employees to write a corporate trip report in a particular fashion.