If you’ve managed or used a commercial card product in the last 10 years, you’re bound to have encountered the term 'enhanced data'.
Much has been written and talked about enhanced data – so much so that the focus may have shifted from using it in a meaningful way to simply having it for the 'sake of it'. The key to deriving value from this data is what you do with it.
The data breakdown
In broad terms, there are six key categories of data that can be identified and are delivered (at least on a global level). All card scheme providers also offer progressive 'levels' of data enrichment in each of these categories*:
- Financial Record: what you’ve been getting from your financial provider for years, the financial information and basic merchant details for a transaction (eg. transaction date, transaction value).
- Travel-related Data: in many cases this data is still primarily related to airline data but does extend to hotel and rental car data. There is increasing focus on moving into these areas, particularly around RFP (request for proposal) time.
- Non-travel-related Data: this data is virtually non-existent in many countries, however it is widely available throughout Great Britain and parts of Europe.
- Cardholder and Organisational Data: card providers are often able to provide information on cardholder and company data (eg. changes to credit limits or lost and stolen cards). However, this data is often only provided on a monthly basis.
- Tax Data: in most countries this information is limited to GST.
- Additional Data added by your core systems: just as important as the externally provided data and obviously more relevant to your particular environment. This data is not captured by the card provider, it is instead added to the transaction as it makes its way through your financial system and/or Expense Management System (EMS).
What matters is what you do with the data
So what happens to all of this extra data? We know that airline data is useful when it comes to assisting travel co-coordinators who need to allocate costs for a number of travellers, substantially improving accuracy and efficiency. With the enhanced data and an electronic reconciliation tool, costs can be allocated in a straightforward manner.
Tax data is obviously also beneficial and can mean that card statements can be used as tax-compliant statements (no more pieces of paper for travellers to collect and file at the end of the month).
The question is what do you do with the rest of the data?
Although travel management companies (TMCs) provide a significant level of reporting for their customers, enhanced data combined with financial system data and EMS data can significantly improve the reporting capability of an organisation.
For instance, organisations are better able to track the total travel costs by combining the enhanced data for airline, rental car and hotel usage with incidentals such as meals, taxis, airport taxes and many others in their financial or EMS system.
Total travel costs obviously provide a much more accurate picture for the travel manager and ultimately provide a tool to better manage travel spend.
Organisations are also able to better manage supplier relationships as enhanced data can allow a detailed picture of expenditure and assist in answering critical supplier questions like:
* Are we getting our discount rates?
* Are we flying best fare of the day?
* Do we have supplier leakage?
* How are our travellers behaving (eg. Are they re-booking once they arrive at the airport? How often do they re-book travel?)?
* Do we need to negotiate rates for specific legs of travel?
* How much are they really spending on the minibar?
* Are they following company policy?
Perhaps one of the most under-used aspects of the current enhanced data landscape is the cardholder and organisational data provided by the card suppliers. This data can assist an organisation in minimising its administration burden by allowing the automatic mapping of cardholder details to records in the financial or EMS system (ie. card numbers, expiry dates or credit limit changes are often all provided in the daily or monthly files produced by the card provider). It also ensures that important items like disrupted transactions can be tracked from the card supplier (many provide non-financial records in their data feeds that notify the progress of disrupted transactions).
When you get it, use it
There’s real value in the data that is provided. What’s important is to look for areas where data is being provided but is not currently being used by your organisation (eg. cardholder information). Using this data can allow you to increase the accuracy of the data in your systems and lower your administration overheads.
And if you want something that is not currently being delivered, then put pressure on your card provider and system suppliers to get the data you want and have it displayed in a way that is meaningful to your organisation.
* For more detail on these levels of data enrichment please visit the website of the relevant card provider