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Travel and Expense Leakage Estimator

Estimate annual and monthly savings from travel and expense controls and generate a finance-ready memo.

This tool is educational and operational. It is not legal, engineering, or financial advice.

Processed in-browser. Nothing is stored.

Inputs

Required

$

Required

Formatting only.

Spend split

%

Estimated percent of total travel spend that is airfare.

%

Estimated percent of total travel spend that is lodging.

%

Estimated percent of total travel spend that is ground transportation.

Out of policy

%

Percent of total spend that is out of policy (booking channel, caps, approvals).

%

Percent of out-of-policy spend you can realistically eliminate through controls.

Unused tickets and credits

%

Percent of airfare spend you can recover via unused ticket and credit tracking.

Hotel optimization

%

Percent savings on hotel spend via negotiated rates, caps, and audit.

Ground optimization

%

Percent savings on ground spend via guardrails and preferred options.

$

Cost to implement controls. Used for payback.

Used in memo output.

Optional context for stakeholders.

Assumptions

  • This is an estimate. Use conservative inputs and validate by expense and vendor trend after controls are installed.
  • Savings levers can overlap. Keep assumptions conservative to avoid double counting.
  • Out-of-policy savings depends on enforceable approval rules and booking channel compliance.
  • Unused ticket savings depends on a repeatable credit tracking and redemption process.

Fix validation errors to generate results.

Results

Enter inputs and click Generate.

How to use

  1. Enter your travel spend and split with conservative assumptions.
  2. Review savings by lever and the baseline transparency table.
  3. Copy or download the memo to align finance and operations.
  4. Validate results after controls are installed and update assumptions.

What results mean

Estimated annual savings combines out-of-policy reduction, ticket recovery, hotel optimization, and ground guardrails.

Savings percent of spend compares the total annual savings estimate to total travel spend.

Payback period divides implementation cost by monthly savings to estimate time to recoup controls.

Common pitfalls

  • Overstating savings without validating booking and expense evidence.
  • Double counting overlapping levers like policy compliance and hotel caps.
  • Skipping the payback input when leadership expects implementation costs.

Definitions

Out of policy spend: Travel spend that violates booking channel rules, rate caps, or approval requirements.

Unused ticket recovery: The value reclaimed by tracking and reusing unused tickets and credits.

Hotel rate optimization: Savings from negotiated rates, caps, and enforcing preferred properties.

Ground guardrails: Preferred ground transportation options and limits on out-of-policy rides.

Change log

v1.0 (2026-01): Latest release