The Department of General Services is seeking a payment provider for a system that centralizes travel management services for the California state workforce.
The Travel Payment System (TPS) is a component of the Statewide Travel Program, which was created in 2008 and whose use is mandated among the state workforce.
"Currently all air and car spend is captured through the TPS, however, hotel spend is typically purchased with a personal credit card, a TPS government card, cash, or through travel advances. It is the State’s intent to implement a managed lodging program to capture our estimated annual transient lodging spend of $75 million utilizing the TPS during the term of this contract," DGS said in the bid document released Oct. 27.
Final proposals are due Dec. 2.
The TPS currently includes 350 direct-billed accounts for airline and car rental expenses, 6,000 individual liability government cards used for hotel and per diem expenses, and 85 corporate cards to direct bill all meeting-related charges.
The contractor will be responsible for printing and issuing cards, maintaining compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) and Data Security Standards (DSS), generating reports, and providing a Web-based system for travel account management and administration, and transaction collection.
A DGS management memo issued in March 2014 outlined a new travel policy requiring all state agencies to make all travel arrangements through the Statewide Travel Program.
"With recent technological advances, the state can unify all of its air, hotel, car and rail reservations through employee use of Concur Travel and/or the CalTravelStore representatives — both of which are available to state travelers 24 hours a day, seven days a week," the memo said.
