It's now easier to oversee and manage travel-related expenses. The monetary values added to each policy will compute the appropriate travel budget per tier (e.g., Employees, VPs, and C-Suite) and destination (e.g., long, medium, or long flights or traveling from London to New York).

Important: Mesh does not create or define your travel policy. Instead, it uses your existing policy as input to help reinforce and support it. 

Follow the steps below to set the travel policies.

1. Log into the Mesh platform using your Admin credentials or as a user with an Employee profile and Travel Manager permission.  

2. Ensure that 'Spend Categories' are enabled and configured properly. 

3. Navigate to the 'Travel' section, click 'Trips', click on the 3 dots on the top right, and then click the 'Manage Travel Policy'.

Note: You can also set up the policies from the 'Travel Policies' section under the 'Company Settings'. 

4. Click on 'Flights'.

4.1. In the 'Settings' section, activate the policy and modify the policy name if needed.

4.2.  In the 'Details' section, choose a relevant Spend Category, input the policy guidelines, select the currency, and specify the Flight duration. The last option offers choices (e.g., a single policy, different policies for short and long flights, or different policies for short, medium, and long flights) and as a result changes the number of values needed in the following sections.  

4.3 In the Spend limit section, add relevant amounts to each flight duration. You can also add amounts to specific routes by clicking on '+ Add route'.

Notes:

• You can define amounts by Tiers (e.g., C-Suite, VPs, Employees). Click here to learn how to create tiers. 
• An added route will apply to both directions (e.g., NYC → Paris trip already covers Paris → NYC, so there is no need to add the other route). 
• The 'more specific location' configured (e.g., destination NYC vs USA) will determine the spent limit allowed or cabin class. 
• If your company uses the Mesh Online Booking Tool (OBT) It is possible to set up a dynamic policy. 

4.4. Designate a class for each flight duration and tier under the Cabin class section. 

4.5. When you are done, click the 'Save' button. 

5. Repeat step 4 for the rest of the predefined policies (i.e., Hotels, Per diem, Local transportation, and Car rental) and note a few differences listed below. 

Note: Some policies allow you to specify how the budget is calculated, its availability, and to whom it is allocated. The following is also true when adding a new policy.

5.1 'Hotels' Includes: 'Name', 'Status', 'Spend category', 'Policy guidelines', 'time off', and the option to add a 'Spend limit' by location.

Note: If your company uses the Mesh Online Booking Tool (OBT) It is possible to set up a dynamic policy. 

5.2 'Per diem': Includes 'Name', 'Status', 'Spend category', 'Policy guidelines', 'budget calculation', 'budget allocation', 'reimbursement' (i.e., the option to 'reimburse the unused budget to the traveler'), 'time off', and the option to add a 'Spend limit' by location.

5.3 'Local transportation' and 'Car rental': Include 'Name', 'Status', 'Spend category', 'Policy guidelines', a 'budget calculation', 'Availability', 'Time off', 'Set budget to be inactive by default' and the option to add a 'Spend limit' by location.

Note: The 'Set budget to be inactive by default' will 'allocate' the budget to a new trip request in the inactive mode, and the Admin/Pro or Travel Manager can change it (i.e., add it to the trip's budget).

6. To add more policies, click the 'Add new policy' link and repeat step 4 to configure them.

Notes:

• Agents/approvers/travelers get an indication when the selected options violate the travel policy.
• The Travel approval workflow includes an out-of-policy condition. This means that requests can be routed to relevant users when the requested budget exceeds the designated amounts per tier and the trip destination.

• Refer to this article for more information about Mesh's enhancement to the older travel policies.