Overview:

BCD Travel was seeking to streamline their VAT recovery and compliance, but multiple expense management systems were not capable of accurately validating invoices and expense reports for VAT eligibility, increasing exposure and compliance risks. After implementing Blue dot’s AI-driven VATBox solution, BCD Travel gained a fully digitalised, centralised and audit-ready VAT recovery process across all their entities, allowing them to optimise reclaims, elevate compliance, and save over 5,000 workforce hours per year by streamlining their workflows

Leveraging our Generative AI beyond expense and tax compliance

“We chose VATBox by Blue dot because we want to optimise our VAT reclaim process, simplify the administrative processes for our finance departments and to increase the compliance of our T&E invoices.” Marcel de WitVP Global Tax at BCD Travel

The Company

BCD Travel is the third largest travel management provider in the world. The company has three main business lines: corporate travel management, travel program optimisation, and events management. BCD Travel is headquartered in the Netherlands, operates in 109 countries, has $27.5 billion in total 2019 sales and a combined worldwide workforce of 13,800.

The company’s mission is to help their clients travel smarter and achieve more by providing travellers with innovative tools that keep them safe and productive and guide them in making good choices on the road.

The Challenges: Multiple EMS Systems Bring Complexity, Risk & Strain on Internal Resources

BCD Travel faced difficulties in obtaining visibility and insights into their VAT recovery and compliance on domestic and foreign Travel & Entertainment (T&E) invoices. The global tax team faced the complexity of multiple expense management systems, and a lack of resources and knowledge to cover VAT rules around the globe. The expense systems in place were not capable of processing invoices and validating them for eligible VAT refunds at the same time,  resulting in BCD recovering only a fraction of its eligible VAT. Moreover, the volume of employee-generated expenses was simply too high a burden for a full manual audit process..