Workers can now bill Grab rides directly to employers

Photo credit: Grab

In a move similar to Uber, Grab today unveiled a feature that makes it easier for companies with business travellers to manage expenses chalked up in the ride-hailing app.

Called Grab for Work, the new offering allows workers to tag their trips as “business” rather than personal and bill them directly to their employers. On the other side, Grab is providing its corporate clients a portal where they can keep track and organize the rides that have been charged.

It’s now available in the six countries where Grab operates.

“Companies should focus resources on business growth and serving their customers. We see an opportunity to provide an end-to-end transport solution for companies – to help them modernize and streamline their transport expense management processes,” says Grab co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan. “Grab for Work […] enables HR and finance departments to save time on managing day-to-day corporate transport expenses.”

The startup beta-tested the new feature among over 150 companies across the region before launching it today.

The feature is not just available for workers whose employers have set up an account with Grab. All users are free to tag their rides as “business” and then download the receipts in one go for easy reimbursement.

Grab also announced a partnership with business travel and expense management firm Concur. That means Concur users will now be able to link their accounts with Grab and automatically send trip receipts to their expense reports.

Grab for Work is now available in the six countries where Grab operates: Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In Indonesia, companies can opt for the monthly direct billing option, where companies issue codes to employees and are invoiced monthly for business rides.

Grab’s arch rival has a similar service called Uber for Business, which it rolled out two years ago.