Travel costs calculated based on the fastest route or shortest route

Depending on the settings, users can declare travel costs in the Spend Cloud. If the declaration type 'Travel costs' is chosen by the declarant,  the field 'From' and 'To' field will appear. Here the departure location and destination of the trip can be filled in. The number of kilometers and the corresponding amount are calculated. There are two ways the Spend Cloud can make this calculation; in this article we explain this.

Kilometer calculation based on the shortest route

If you as an organization choose a calculation based on the shortest route, the shortest route at the time of entering the addresses of that moment will determine the amount of kilometers. This is based on date we retrieve from Google Maps. If there is a diversion on the road, for example through construction, Google Maps will take an alternative route. We have no influence on this in our software and it can therefore happen that the same addresses different distances in different lines.

In Google Maps it looks like this:

You can see in this image that there are three possible routes. The Spend Cloud will take the shortest route of 51 kilometers to calculate the costs of this trip.

Kilometers calculation based on the fastest route

Some organizations choose to have the kilometer calculation based on the fastest route, rather than the shortest route. Here is an example from Google Maps:

We see here that the upper route is longer than the lower route (namely 57.3 kilometers, instead of 52.4 kilometers), but this route is faster. Therefore, the Spend Cloud will take the upper number of kilomters for this trip, so 57.3 kilometers. Depending on the time of calculation, there may also be a difference in the number of kilometers depending on the time of creating the declaration. For example, suppose there is a traffic jam somewhere, Google Maps takes another route.

Which calculation method you choose as an organization is up to you. If you receive questions from declarants about the calculation method, you can refer to the information above.”

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