SAN FRANCISCO – If you’ve ever accidentally expensed your company for a late-night Uber trip home from the bar, then you’ll be one of the people happy to know the San Francisco-based company plans to solve that problem with the release of Business Profiles on Tuesday.
Uber for Business users can now switch between their work profiles and their personal profiles in one click. The new feature, which Uber says will be available internationally, will be previewed at Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce.com conference on Tuesday. Conference-goers will be able to turn on business profiles for their accounts by visiting Uber.com/Dream.
“Dreamforce is the perfect venue to release this because there’s 100,000 business travellers all in one place at the same time,” says Greg Greiner, lead product development of Uber for Business.
With the new addition, Uber is hoping to make it easier for users to know when they’re charging a trip to their business expense account and when they’re charging a trip to their own credit card.
“There’s a big fear around charging these personal trips to your work card and having to explain that to your company,” Greiner says. “This solves this in multiple ways.”
The feature follows other improvements to Uber for Business, which has been in the market for about a year and it used by 50,000 businesses, with trips taken in 58 countries. A recently-added monthly billing feature allows companies to pay via bank transfer against a monthly balance, instead of on a credit card account after every ride.
“It seems like a simple feature, but it really is a huge step for us,” Crowley says. “Over time we’re seeing this will be a massive opportunity for us and a large percentage of our business.”
The option to pay with a bank transfer had appeal for Uber’s international clients, he says. Companies using this option to settle their bill are already spending on average 10 times the amount compared to companies paying per trip.
