Corporate accounts: your company's ground transport in London, on one invoice

Who opens an account in London

The insurance and financial head offices downtown, whose executives fly from Pearson weekly and whose visitors arrive from Toronto and abroad; the plants on the east side - 3M, General Dynamics, Diamond Aircraft and their suppliers - with customers, auditors and delegations to collect; the hospitals and the medical school with visiting physicians, examiners and device-company representatives; Western, Ivey and Fanshawe with speakers, candidates, recruiters and teams; the law firms with witnesses, experts and trial days; the tech companies with candidates and investors; the hotels and the conference organisers with delegates; and the Toronto, Kitchener and Detroit companies whose people come to London to see all of them. Each has the same problem - a drawer of receipts, no record of who drove whom, and an assistant reconciling it after the fact - and the account is the same answer.

What the account replaces

Without an account, a London company's ground transport is a drawer of receipts: airport limos on personal cards, ride-hail charges nobody can verify, a taxi chit from Pearson, a hotel car in Toronto, a visitor who took a cab from the terminal and expensed it. Nobody can say what the company spent on ground transport last quarter, which drivers were licensed and insured, or whether the visiting executive was met at all. The account replaces the drawer with one supplier working to one published standard, one rule set the company controls, one record and one invoice.

How the account is set up

Opening an account is a call to the desk or a short form: the company's legal name and billing address; the assistants and travel arrangers who will book; the travellers to profile, with mobile numbers so that confirmations reach them; the addresses that recur - the office, the plant gate, the hotels the company uses, the executives' homes for the early Pearson runs; the cost centres, projects or client-matter codes journeys should carry; and the policy rules. Profiles can be imported from a spreadsheet. The account is live the same day, the coordinator walks the assistants through the first bookings, and nothing else in the company's travel arrangements has to change.

How booking works

An assistant logs in, picks the traveller from the profile list, picks a saved address or types a new one, enters the date, the time and the flight number if there is one, picks the vehicle class the policy allows, and confirms; the fixed price is shown before confirmation. The confirmation goes to the traveller and the assistant; the chauffeur's name, mobile and plate follow the evening before; the chauffeur texts on arrival and the host is texted when a visitor is in the car. Changes and cancellations are made in the same place or by a call to the desk. A guest booking for a visitor who is not an employee carries the visitor's name and flight and the host's cost centre, and the visitor never sees a bill.

Policy rules the account can enforce

Which grades may book the luxury sedan and which the business sedan; whether an hourly booking above a threshold needs a manager's approval; which cost centres an assistant may charge; whether personal journeys may be booked on the account at all and on what code; whether a traveller may book for themselves or only through an arranger; whether a Sprinter may be booked without the coordinator's confirmation. The rules are set once at opening and applied by the engine at the moment of booking, so that policy is enforced without an assistant having to remember it and finance having to police it afterwards.

Coding, invoicing and tax

Every journey carries the code the company requires - a cost centre, a project, a client matter, a traveller's employee number - and the monthly invoice and report are broken down by those codes. Invoicing is monthly by default, consolidated, in Canadian dollars, with HST broken out on every line so that the company recovers its input tax credits, and with per-journey receipts for firms that rebill disbursements to a client; the Canada Revenue Agency's treatment of passenger transport is reflected on every one. Payment is by card on file, pre-authorised debit or invoice terms for established accounts.

Reporting

The monthly report shows spend by cost centre, traveller, route, vehicle class and product - airport, in-city, hourly, intercity, group; journeys and hours; average fare by route; the share of journeys booked more than a day ahead; and, on request, an estimate of emissions by vehicle class. A travel manager uses it to see that the Pearson run is the company's largest line, that two executives book the luxury sedan and the rest the business sedan, and that the Toronto day would be cheaper by the hour than as two fixed rates; it exports in the format the expense system expects.

Duty of care

An employer owes a duty of care to travelling staff, and ground transport is the part of a trip least often covered by it. The account provides the record: for every journey, who travelled, which licensed chauffeur drove, in which insured vehicle, from where to where, and when. If a traveller is late, unwell or on the 401 in a squall, the desk knows where they are and can reach the chauffeur in seconds. Certificates of the chauffeurs' licensing and the vehicles' commercial passenger insurance are provided for the supplier file, and the chauffeur standard is published so that the company's travel policy can cite it; the Global Business Travel Association's guidance on ground-transport risk is the benchmark.

Rates and terms

The reservation engine's fixed rates apply to every booking on the account from the first day: no surge, no meter, no gratuity to add. Accounts with regular volume receive terms in writing after the first quarter - a volume rebate, a preferred rate on the routes the company books most, an hourly rate for the site day - and the rates page publishes the planning ranges the engine works from. The cancellation policy is the standard one on every confirmation - free more than 72 hours out, 10 percent within 72 hours, 50 percent within 48, and the full fare within 24 hours or for a no-show - and the terms state it in full.

Working with a travel-management company

Companies that use a TMC keep it: LondonLimo.net becomes the ground supplier inside the TMC's programme, with bookings flowing through the TMC's tools and the account's rules still applied, and the TMC's reporting picking up the ground segment it usually cannot see. Companies without a TMC use the travel desk for flights and hotels on the same file.

The visiting company's account

A Toronto, Kitchener, Detroit or overseas company that sends people to London regularly opens the same account from where it sits: the London plant visit, the Western recruiting day, the hospital delegation and the trial are booked by its assistant against its cost centres, and the visitors are met at Pearson, YXU or the Detroit terminal on the same standard.

The account for the institutions

Western's departments, the hospitals' programs, the school boards, the City and the County open departmental accounts with the institution's purchasing rules built in - purchase-order numbers on the invoice, the traveller's name on each line, and the approval chain the institution requires - and the universities and government pages describe the bookings.

Three accounts, as they actually run

A financial head office, downtown. Twelve profiled executives, two assistants who book, a standing Monday 5:30 a.m. Pearson run for the CFO, a dozen visitor meets a month, and a quarterly board dinner by Sprinter; one invoice by cost centre, and a volume rebate after the first quarter.

A litigation firm. A matter-number field on every booking, trial-week standing runs from the DoubleTree to the courthouse, witnesses and experts met at Pearson, and the invoice's lines rebilled to clients as disbursements without a reconciliation.

A plant on Oxford Street East. Customer and auditor meets at Pearson and YXU, a delegation's Sprinter twice a year with pre-cleared gate procedures, the plant manager's Detroit days across the bridge, and a coordinator who knows the gate's visitor rules.

Opening an account

Call or email the desk, or send the company's details through the form; the coordinator sets the account up the same day and walks the assistants through the first bookings. The corporate chauffeur service page describes the service; the rates page the planning figures; the FAQ the questions travellers ask.

Three questions travel managers ask before opening an account

How do we stop travellers booking the luxury sedan? A policy rule by grade, set at opening; the engine offers only the classes the traveller's grade allows, and an exception needs the approver's click. Can we see spend before the invoice arrives? Yes - the account's dashboard shows the month's bookings and their fixed prices as they are made, so that a travel manager sees the quarter forming rather than reading it afterwards. What if our people fly from Detroit or Hamilton rather than Pearson? The account covers every airport on the airports hub at the same fixed-rate logic, and the cross-border page explains the Detroit documents.

The London company's year, on an account

January's board meetings and the executives' Pearson runs in the squalls; March's customer visits to the plants; May's convocation-season visitors at Western and Ivey; June's golf day and the chamber's awards; September's conference at RBC Place with a manifest of delegates; October's Homecoming for the alumni on the board; December's client dinners and the office party by Sprinter: the events page has the calendar, and the account carries each on the cost centre it belongs to.

Booking checklist for an assistant

The traveller from the profile list; the pickup address or the flight number and terminal; the destination; the date and time; the vehicle class the policy allows; the cost centre or matter number; a note for the chauffeur - a name board's wording, a gate procedure, a stop; and the host's number for the arrival text if the passenger is a visitor. The engine confirms in seconds; the desk confirms an itinerary in one email.

Open a corporate account