Corporate Direct Bookings

Corporate Direct is a special payment provider for business travel where the company is billed directly instead of the employee paying. It integrates with Rahal's policy and budget systems to enforce company travel rules.

How It Works

Unlike consumer payment providers, Corporate Direct:

1. Bypasses payment processing — No card or wallet payment required
2. Evaluates policies — Checks company travel policies before booking
3. Enforces budgets — Reserves and tracks budget consumption
4. Bills the company — Company receives an invoice for all employee bookings

Booking Flow

Policy Integration

Before a corporate direct order is created, the system evaluates the booking against the user's assigned policy.

Policy Actions

What Gets Checked

• Flights: Route rules, cabin class, duration tiers, budget limits
• Hotels: Location rules, star ratings, daily rate limits

Blocking Behavior

If any item in the booking is blocked by policy, the entire order is rejected:

ForbiddenException: Booking blocked by company policy:
air item 1: Cabin class FIRST not allowed for this route

Budget Integration

After policy evaluation, the system checks the user's budget allocation.

Budget Reservation Flow

1. Evaluation: Check if user has sufficient budget
2. Reservation: Reserve budget amount when order is created
3. Confirmation: Convert reserved → spent when order finalizes
4. Release: Release reservation if order fails

Budget Enforcement Modes

Currency Conversion

If the booking currency differs from the budget currency, automatic conversion is applied:

Booking: 1,500,000 IQD
Budget Currency: USD
Converted: ~$1,150 USD (at current rate)

Order Creation

When a corporate direct order is created, additional fields are populated:

Violation Logging

Policy violations are logged for analytics and compliance:

{
  userId: "user123",
  companyId: "company456",
  policyId: "policy789",
  referenceType: "ORDER",
  referenceId: "order_abc",
  serviceType: "FLIGHT",
  violations: [
    { rule: "cabin_class", message: "Business class not allowed" }
  ],
  action: "WARN_AND_ALLOW"
}

Budget violations are also logged:

{
  companyId: "company456",
  userId: "user123",
  budgetId: "budget_xyz",
  budgetPeriodId: "period_q1",
  referenceType: "ORDER",
  referenceId: "order_abc",
  requestedAmount: 1500,
  availableAmount: 1000,
  currency: "USD",
  enforcementMode: "WARN",
  action: "ALLOWED"
}

Error Handling

Policy Block Errors

ForbiddenException: Booking blocked by company policy:
[service type] item [index]: [violation messages]

Budget Block Errors

ForbiddenException: Budget exceeded and booking is blocked

Processing Failures

If reservations fail after order creation:

1. Budget reservation is released
2. Order status set to FAILED
3. Error event logged

Budget Timing Configuration

Companies can configure when budget is reserved via company budget settings:

For corporate direct bookings (no approval workflow), ON_REQUEST effectively reserves immediately.

Differences from Consumer Orders

Admin Visibility

Corporate direct orders are visible in the Travel Zone Dashboard with:

• Company name (if available)
• Policy reference
• Budget transaction history
• Full event audit trail

Filtering by provider: CORPORATE_DIRECT shows all corporate bookings.

Best Practices

For Administrators

1. Monitor violations: Review policy violations regularly
2. Check budget consumption: Track spend against budgets
3. Review failed orders: Investigate failed corporate orders for patterns

For Finance Teams

1. Invoice reconciliation: Match orders to company invoices
2. Budget reports: Generate spend reports by user/department
3. Refund tracking: Monitor refunds and credits