That’s the finding of new research by KDS, a global provider of corporate travel and expense management software solutions.

Devised to investigate the attitudes, actions and behaviours of UK and US business professionals when booking and managing their work-related travel and reporting travel expenses, the survey questioned over 1,000 participants.

The research also revealed that 41% of respondents still use time-intensive spreadsheets for tracking and submitting their expenses, with 47% of those respondents confirming it takes between 30 minutes and one hour to submit an expense claim, and 18% taking one to two hours.  

A total of 80% of employees complete their expense submissions during working hours.

The firm added that the implications for UK and US businesses in terms of productivity wastage are high. Over 56% of US survey respondents recorded salaries of between $50K and $99K, while 37% of UK respondents fell into the £55K-£99K income bracket.

“Our research findings demonstrate how outdated processes and clunky T&E systems limit traveller choice or sacrifice usability, which forces people to book direct and continues to negatively impact UK and US firms,” said Dean Forbes, CEO, KDS.  

“From a cost and productivity standpoint, this should alert companies to the importance of having the right procedures and solutions in place to ensure staff can operate at maximum efficiency.”