Travel Distance & Expense Calculation

The Travel Distance & Expense Calculation use case helps organizations automate distance calculations for employee travel, business trips, customer visits, and expense reimbursement.

By converting addresses into geographic coordinates and calculating the route between them, organizations can determine consistent travel distances without relying on manual calculations or employee-provided estimates.

Typical Customers

This use case is commonly used by:

• HR and payroll platforms
• Expense management providers
• Staffing and recruitment agencies
• Field service organizations
• Healthcare and home-care providers
• Consultancy firms
• Logistics and mobility platforms
• Organizations with commuting or business travel allowances

Typical Flow

Receive origin and destination addresses
            ↓
Convert both addresses into coordinates
            ↓
Validate the address matches
            ↓
Calculate the route
            ↓
Retrieve the travel distance and duration
            ↓
Apply the organization's reimbursement rules

Recommended APIs

Routeplanner Search API

Use the Routeplanner Search API to convert a postal address into geographic coordinates.

The geocoding response can include:

• Standardized address
• Street
• House number
• Postal code
• City
• Country
• Latitude and longitude
• Address match quality
• An indication that a fallback house number was used

The returned address should be validated before its coordinates are used for route calculation. This is particularly important when the response contains houseNumberFallback: true, as the returned house number may differ from the requested house number.

Endpoint:

GET /routeplanner/search/geocode

Routeplanner Routing API

Use the Routeplanner Routing API to calculate a route between the coordinates of the origin and destination.

The API supports several modes of transport, including:

• Car
• Truck
• Bicycle
• Pedestrian
• Scooter

The response can include the calculated route distance and expected travel duration. Your application can use the distance to apply its own reimbursement rate and business rules.

Endpoint:

GET /routeplanner/routing/routes

See Calculate routes for all available routing parameters.

Business Value

Consistent expense calculations

Calculate travel distances according to one standardized routing method instead of relying on manually entered distances.

Reduced administrative work

Automatically calculate distances during the submission or processing of travel expense claims.

Improved data quality

Standardize and validate addresses before using them in route calculations.

Transparent reimbursement

Store the addresses, calculated distance, routing method, and applicable reimbursement rate to support verification and auditing.

Flexible business rules

Apply your own reimbursement rate, transport mode, rounding method, minimum distance, or return-trip policy.

Example Scenarios

Employee Travel Expenses

An employee submits an origin and destination address. The application calculates the driving distance and automatically applies the organization's reimbursement rate per kilometre.

Commuting Allowance

An HR or payroll platform calculates the distance between an employee's home and workplace to determine their commuting allowance.

Customer and Project Visits

A consultancy or field service organization calculates the distance travelled to customers and projects for invoicing or internal expense processing.

Healthcare Travel

A healthcare provider calculates travel distances between care locations to support employee reimbursement and operational reporting.

Staffing and Temporary Employment

A staffing platform calculates the commuting distance between a candidate's address and the assigned workplace.

Important Considerations

The Routeplanner API provides address matching, geographic coordinates, routes, distances, and travel durations. It does not determine which reimbursement rules apply.

The customer remains responsible for defining rules such as:

• Reimbursement rate per kilometer
• One-way or return-trip calculations
• Fastest or shortest route
• Rounding rules
• Maximum reimbursable distance
• Treatment of address fallback results
• Applicable tax or employment regulations

For reliable calculations, always verify that the geocoding result matches the requested postal code and house number before calculating the route.