No Substitute for Cash

A few bucks here, $5 there, tips for shuttle drivers, skycaps, bellhops, concierge services and housekeeping — it adds up. But for everything else — restaurants, taxis and delivery services — there are ways business travelers can keep better track of their tips.

Thomas King, 23, knows this all too well. As a consultant who travels frequently, Mr. King says he does not have a choice when it comes to tipping. Junior members who travel with senior colleagues are responsible for digging into their wallets. “I do my best to write them down as I go along,” said Mr. King, who does so on his smartphone. But when he is not traveling for work, “I don’t carry cash anymore,” he said. “I really have to go out of my way to have $20 in cash in my pocket.”

Given that the typical company spends 10 percent or more of its total annual budget on expenses related to business travel, according to the Aberdeen Group, a market research firm, those miscellaneous expenditures can nick corporate coffers. That is, if a business traveler actually remembers or cares to add out-of-pocket spending on travel and expense reports.

When he travels, Michael Hilton, a co-founder of Concur, the Bellevue, Wash., provider of travel and expense management software, says he tries to keep most but not all of his tips on credit cards, or he uses mobile apps like Uber, Square and Taxi Magic, which automatically uploads taxi receipts to Concur. But for workers like bellhops and housekeeping, which are typically not included in a final bill, he uses cash.

“I tip people who service the room, but I never once expense them,” he said.

“Nobody likes cash,” Mr. Hilton said. “That’s where technology comes in. People want electronic receipts and want to pay electronically.” Concur uploads such online receipts into expense claims to save time and ensure accuracy, he said.

The automated technology that Concur provides companies with typically helps avoid the opposite problem of the employee who routinely overestimates cash tips.

Most companies allow for “reasonable tips” in their travel guidelines, Mr. Hilton said.

For Abraham Shafi, 26, chief executive of GetTalent, an upstart recruiting software provider based in San Francisco, the issue is straightforward. He follows a personal guideline instilled by his father who was in the service industry: Tip to scale to reinforce positive behavior.

“I’ve never expensed tipping, but now that you bring it up, I probably should,” Mr. Shafi said. “These days, you don’t carry cash. It is difficult when you can pay for everything now with phone or credit card. It’s easier to expense what’s on the credit card.”

The same is true for his 10 employees, Mr. Shafi said. He said he did not think his employees included tips on the expense reports because it was too much trouble.

Business travelers like Mr. Shafi and Mr. Hilton would certainly welcome some kind of technological assistance to help them remember to tip or to make it easier to do so.

Jeff Kagan, a technology analyst, says mobile payments are in their infancy. At present, he says he does not know of a mobile app just for gratuities. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Mr. Kagan said in an e-mail interview. “There are almost a million apps today. But I have not heard of one yet.

“Gratuity apps seem to make a lot of sense,” he added. “The next question is what kind of app? Is it a generic app that can be used for many different tips at different places? Or is it a hotel app, for that particular hotel? It would not get as much use, however.”

Google Wallet and PayPal are staking a claim in the mobile payments area, as are banks like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, in offering person-to-person payments.

Back in the paper economy, the reality for workers is that not everyone is inclined to tip, especially for housekeeping, as opposed to say, restaurant servers.