Corporate Taxi Expense Policy

Most finance teams managing business travel across Australia know exactly what happens when clear rules aren't in place. Personal cards get mixed in, receipts disappear and travel-related expenses pile up with no easy way to verify them at month-end.

A solid corporate taxi policy stops these headaches at the source. By defining exactly who can book travel, which trips qualify for coverage and how fares are recorded for ATO compliance, you take the guesswork out of the process for your staff.

Getting these guidelines right makes a huge difference for businesses managing domestic travel at scale. Instead of your finance team wasting time chasing down missing data, they can focus on acting on it. To build a policy that works for your team, here's a breakdown of the key areas to address.

1. Who gets to ride and when they can book

Your policy should specify exactly who has access to a Cabcharge product and how they may use it. To keep things clear for your team, your policy should address the following:

• Which staff roles are eligible, and whether contractors or external guests can use them.

• When a manager needs to grant travel approval before a trip is booked.
• What counts as private travel, such as a personal detour during a work trip, which should be explicitly excluded.
• What happens when someone travels outside these rules, such as whether they must pay personally and request reimbursement later, or if out-of-policy trips are not permitted at all.

Setting these clear boundaries makes the rules much easier to enforce.

Which Cabcharge product fits your policy?

The Cabcharge travel solution you choose depends on who's travelling, how often they travel and whether they prefer to use a smartphone. Use the table below to match the right product to each traveller category in your policy.

Product	Best for	How it's delivered	Smartphone required	When not to use
FASTCARD	Frequent staff who travel by taxi regularly for work.	Physical card or Digital FASTCARD via Apple Pay or Google Pay.	No for physical card, yes for Digital FASTCARD.	One-off or external guest travel where a reusable named card is not needed.
Digital Pass	Occasional staff, contractors and external guests.	SMS or email link added to Apple Wallet or Google Pay.	Yes. Samsung Pay is not compatible.	When the recipient has no smartphone, unreliable mobile data or needs a physical card handover.
eTicket	Guests without a smartphone or anyone needing a physical card handover. Best for organisations that pre-order eTickets and keep a supply on hand.	Single-use physical card with contactless chip, ordered through Cabcharge+.	No.	When instant issue is needed. eTickets require ordering and delivery lead time through Cabcharge+.

2. Clear spending limits for different staff levels and trips

A strong taxi expense policy doesn't apply a single flat limit across your entire organisation. Taxi fares vary significantly depending on trip type, distance and the traveller's role, so your spending rules should reflect that.

In practice, a senior manager who regularly travels between client sites has different needs from a staff member who takes a cab twice a year. Your policy might set a higher per-trip cap for frequent travellers and a lower limit for general staff. To help you manage this, Cabcharge products let you apply specific controls before anyone even travels.

Depending on the needs of your business, you can:

• Set different spending limits based on the product each traveller type is using.
• Apply time restrictions to individual cards, such as limiting travel to business hours.
• Update these rules at any time without needing to reissue the card.

Corporate credit cards rely on your team keeping track of receipts and remembering spending caps after a trip is already finished, but Cabcharge puts the controls in place before the taxi is even called. This removes the need for manual claim forms and takes the pressure off both your travellers and your finance team.

3. What counts as an approved trip under your taxi policy

Clear eligibility rules protect your organisation and remove any doubt for your staff when they book a trip. Your policy needs to outline exactly which journeys are covered and where the boundaries sit.

You should also clarify your stance on alternative transport. If you choose to cover rideshare services alongside taxis, applying the same spending limits and receipt requirements keeps your guidelines consistent.

Use the reference table below to define what falls under your taxi policy and what sits outside it.

Covered under this policy	Out of scope
Taxi fares for approved business trips	Meals and incidental expenses
Airport transfers and work event travel	Parking costs and parking fees
Trip tolls, included in the Cabcharge fare	Public transport fares
Rideshare trips where the policy explicitly permits them	Private motor vehicle claims
Home-to-work and work-to-home trips*	Personal detours and private travel

*Trips between home and work can attract Fringe Benefits Tax, a tax employers pay on certain benefits given to staff. It's best to check your business's tax approach before approving these trips without any conditions.

Any expense in the excluded list should be managed under a separate expense category with its own specific rules.

4. How employees pay and capture receipts with Cabcharge

At the end of every trip, the fare is processed directly through the in-taxi Cabcharge terminal. This means your staff never have to photograph, forward or manually submit any receipts.

Every transaction automatically generates an itemised tax invoice and sends it straight to your Cabcharge+ portal the moment the payment goes through. To make compliance and reconciliation effortless, these itemised receipts automatically capture:

• The traveller's name and trip details.
• The exact fare breakdown, date and time.
• Everything the ATO requires for compliance and your finance team needs for a quick reconciliation.

This completely removes the slow reimbursement of expenses that personal card use creates. You have no claims to review, no missing receipts to chase and no month-end guesswork based on what a staff member thinks they spent.

For most day trips by taxi, the Cabcharge receipt covers your reporting needs. For overnight travel, the ATO can also require extra documentation like a travel diary or itineraries, so it helps to specify in your policy when your team needs to supply these.

How Cabcharge+ makes your taxi expense policy work automatically

Cabcharge+ is the free online portal included with every Cabcharge account. It turns your taxi policy into a live, managed programme rather than just a document saved on a shared drive.

Every trip processed through a Cabcharge product appears in your portal automatically. From there, you can generate a complete expense report, filter by traveller, team or date range and push data straight to SAP Concur without any manual exports. This means all your business expenses from taxi travel are visible in one place, in real time.

You can also issue and cancel Cabcharge products instantly, update spending rules per product and track usage as it happens instead of waiting for a monthly statement.

Cabcharge is accepted by 98% of Australian taxis and used by 80% of ASX 200 companies for corporate travel management. Australia's largest affiliated taxi network spans national providers like 13cabs and Black & White Cabs, state-based operators including Silver Service, Silver Top and Swan Taxis, plus hundreds of regional providers across every state and territory. Your team is covered wherever work takes them.

Apply for a Cabcharge account today to build a taxi expense policy that essentially takes care of itself.