Pre-trip authorization
How do we authorize a trip before it is booked, with the cost, the purpose and the risk checked and the exceptions reported?
Make the trip request a decision taken before anyone searches for a fare. Callvu prefills the request from the traveler's profile and the trip purpose (the dates, the destination, the estimated cost from the policy's benchmarks, the cost center, the project), checks it against the corporate travel policy (the budget, the purpose categories, the destination risk level, the travel freeze or the pre-approval threshold), routes it to the approver the policy names in the Decision Desk with the estimate and the policy result, captures the authorization with its number and its conditions, writes it to the booking system so the booking tool only allows bookings inside the authorization, and reports every exception to the travel manager.
In scopeComplex: multi-party handoffsCallvu moves: prefill, decide, write back
Last updated November 7, 2026.
The problem today
The trip was booked, flown and expensed before anyone asked whether it should have happened.
Companies that authorize trips do it in a spreadsheet, an email thread or a form that lives apart from the booking tool. The authorization arrives after the booking, or never; the booking tool cannot tell whether a trip was authorized; the expense system finds out last. In a travel freeze or a cost program, the gap is where the spend leaks.
A pre-trip authorization is a decision on an estimate: the purpose, the dates, the destination, the estimated cost against the benchmark, the cost center's budget, the risk level of the destination. The policy names the approver and the threshold. If the authorization is a record the booking tool can read, the booking is constrained by it.
Authorize first, then book inside the authorization.
How it runs
From the requestto the system of record.
A traveler or an arranger requests a trip before booking (from the booking tool, the intranet or an AI assistant). Callvu opens the authorization.
- Traveler or arranger
- Confirms the prefilled request, the purpose and the estimate.
- Approver
- Decides in the Decision Desk with the estimate and the policy result.
- Travel manager and finance
- See the authorizations and the exceptions.
- Callvu
- Prefills, checks, routes, captures and writes.
Prefill the request
The traveler's profile (the grade, the cost center, the home city), the trip purpose category, the dates and the destination are prefilled from the request; the estimate is computed from the policy's benchmarks for the route, the cabin entitlement and the city hotel cap; the project or the client to charge is captured.
Check against the policy
The request is checked against the corporate travel policy: the purpose is an allowed category, the estimate is within the cost center's budget and under or over the pre-approval threshold, the destination's risk level (which routes to the high-risk destination process where it applies), any travel freeze or the advance notice rule; the result is attached to the request.
Decide
A request inside the policy and under the threshold is authorized by rule where the policy allows; otherwise the approver named for the cost center or the amount decides in the Decision Desk with the estimate and the policy result and only the allowed outcomes: authorize, authorize with a cap or conditions, or decline with the reason.
Write back
The authorization with its number, the cap, the conditions and the validity dates is written to the booking system and the booking tool, which allows bookings only inside it; the exceptions (an override, an authorization above the threshold, a declined request later booked) are reported to the travel manager through the exception reporting process.
Where it ends: The trip was authorized on an estimate before booking, by the named approver or by rule, and the booking system holds the authorization the booking tool enforces. The Decision Trace shows the policy check and the decision; the Audit Trace shows the request, the routing and the write.
Runtime enforcement
What is enforcedwhile the work runs.
The regulations preloaded in Callvu Studio and the bank's own policies, applied as steps that run, not lines in a binder. A step that breaks a rule does not run, so a completed run was compliant.
The handoff
Between the front doorand the back office.
The front door
The booking tool, the intranet or an AI assistant; the traveler confirms the prefilled request.
The back office
The approver decides from an estimate; finance and the travel manager see authorizations and exceptions live.
The Decision Desk
- A request over the threshold or outside the policy goes to the approver named for the cost center or the amount in the Decision Desk with the estimate and only authorize, authorize with a cap or conditions, or decline with the reason.
Proof
In scope.Proof at scale, not one process at a time.
The kind of process Callvu runs in production for customers in this industry. Ask for a reference on this exact process. The results below are the industry's published proof; each claim code links to its record on agents.callvu.com.
More than 1,000 processes are live across Callvu customers.
Across Callvu customers
Questions
What buyers ask next,answered plainly.
What is checked before authorization?
The purpose category, the estimate from the policy's benchmarks against the budget and the threshold, the destination's risk level, any travel freeze and the advance notice rule.
How is the authorization enforced?
It is written to the booking system with its cap and dates, and the booking tool allows bookings only inside it.
What counts as an exception?
An override, an authorization above the threshold, a missed advance notice, or a declined request later booked; each is reported to the travel manager.
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