A SAP Concur blog emphasizes the responsibility of the public sector in travel, expense, and invoice management, noting that manual processes and siloed data hinder fraud and compliance management. It recommends automated solutions using AI and machine learning to spot anomalies, and OCR and three-way matching for accuracy, to help public sector meet higher fiscal responsibility.
SAP Concur published an article citing 2017 Security Magazine data that more than one million people are in the air, over 400,000 of them traveling for business. Citing a 2018 SAP Concur customer survey, it notes 98% of organizations express confidence in their duty of care approach, yet nearly 25% don't store or regularly update employee contact information, more than 40% either don't capture every trip or are unsure, and almost 75% rely on the same booking tool to track employee location. The article argues finance leaders should coordinate HR, security, and travel management to fulfill duty of care.
A SAP Concur blog post cites an IDC study finding that companies automating accounts payable with a cloud-based solution gain greater visibility into accruals and spending, reduce invoice processing time and pay vendors faster. It also mentions a 505% first-year ROI for Concur Invoice customers.
The article examines barriers to adopting AP invoice automation in the financial services, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) industries. These sectors face common challenges including compliance, disruptive technology, mobile work, and fraud. Automating AP invoice processes can help businesses adapt, streamline operations, and free up capital. However, fear of change, presumed lack of IT expertise, fear of job loss, and security concerns hinder adoption. The article cites AMI-Partners research showing automation helps accounting/finance employees reduce invoice processing time by 16%.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that hospitals and healthcare systems are using continuing medical education (CME) to attract talent and improve quality, but CME budget management faces three key problems: manual processes, limited visibility, and difficult control. The article suggests organizations rethink CME spend management and leverage automation tools to improve efficiency.
A SAP Concur blog post looks at how intelligent technology will affect travel and expense management: trips that book themselves, expense reports that write themselves, and data that analyzes itself. It cites data: 80% of business travelers rely on their phone to conduct business and 88% believe technology makes travel easier to navigate; 63% of business travel managers feel travelers' risk has increased and 52% fear it will rise more in the next year; 88% of CFOs point to T&E costs as a way to optimize working capital; and 49% of today's jobs will be affected by automation.
A SAP Concur blog post argues manual and spreadsheet-driven processes are costly and inefficient at any scale, with an even bigger impact on resource-constrained SMBs. It cites data: 26% use spreadsheets to manage expenses, 49% of small businesses still use handwritten records to track spend, accounting and finance staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices, 50% of SMBs say manual processes hinder cash flow visibility, 42% report invoice reconciliation errors, and 75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets. It groups reasons SMBs haven't automated into four categories and cites AMI-Partners data showing automation yields ave…
SAP Concur and Deloitte Tax co-authored an article explaining how VAT impacts employee expenses and planning for recovery. It notes an average of 44% of potential VAT revenue is left on the table each year from travel expenses. VAT is levied in more than 160 countries, with the U.S. being the largest economy that does not levy VAT. 42% of employee expense transactions fail to meet VAT reclaim requirements due to incorrect or missing data. Michelin recovered $3.9 million in three years with VAT technology.
An SAP Concur blog post highlights that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in unused tickets from canceled trips, posing significant challenges for corporate travel management. The article analyzes hurdles such as identifying unused tickets, dealing with multiple TMCs, and allocating funds. It proposes four best practices: using air contracts with preferred carriers, mandating TMC usage, consolidating TMCs, and implementing a corporate card policy to help organizations recoup costs and enhance control.
A SAP Concur blog post describes how the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Mass., closed in mid-March during COVID-19 and needed to offer a museum experience online. PEM's decision three years earlier to digitize back-office operations using SAP Concur solutions for travel, expense, and invoice processes reduced administrative burdens and made vendor onboarding and payment faster and easier. Valerie Blatt, who heads SAP Concur global SMB, said that without automated processes and data visibility, organizations cannot pinpoint discount or cost-saving opportunities. She noted that more SMBs are turning to automation software to protect cash flow, improve efficiency, and control costs.
SAP Concur published a blog post discussing the impact of expense and AP automation on finance staff. The article notes that automation can reduce repetitive manual tasks, allowing finance staff to focus on higher-value work such as strategic analysis and vendor negotiations. It cites a World Economic Forum projection that by 2025, automation will disrupt 85 million jobs while creating 97 million new ones. The article also covers benefits in compliance, accuracy, cost control, and business insights, citing cases from companies like Alkermes, Plymouth Rock Assurance, and CareerBuilder.
This SAP Concur blog post states that a clear T&E policy reduces errors, saves time, and reduces fraud risk. Ambiguous rules lead to noncompliant expenses and employee confusion. Clear guidelines improve communication and speed up approvals. It suggests using an expense policy builder to create a personalized policy.
SAP Concur describes continuous accounting, where transactions enter the system as they occur rather than at period end. This improves productivity, real-time visibility, and accuracy. Research shows an integrated, automated expense, travel, and invoice solution saves the average finance employee about 500 hours a year.
SAP Concur blog post discusses the challenges of expense management in a hybrid work environment and provides a checklist to help businesses assess whether their expense management processes meet remote work demands. It recommends automating expense management from data capture to reporting and analytics, and paying attention to new spending categories, approval times, and employee feedback.
SAP Concur announced that Concur Travel & Expense has again been named a Top-Rated Expense Management Software in both the Expense Management and Travel Management categories by TrustRadius. The TrustRadius Top Rated Awards are based entirely on customer feedback and have become the industry standard for unbiased recognition of B2B technology products since 2016. Each month, about 500,000 B2B technology buyers use more than 220,000 verified reviews and ratings to make purchasing decisions. The 800+ reviews from verified users highlight features like positive user experience, budget visibility, mobile receipt capture, and time savings. Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius, noted that…
This article provides a guide to preparing T&E processes for a merger or acquisition, including documentation, due diligence checklists, system consolidation, and employee training to handle the challenges.
A SAP Concur blog post states that with tighter budgets, many organizations are examining purchasing to find savings. For organizations without a formal procurement department or full-time purchasing staff, employees who purchase as a small part of their jobs represent a big savings opportunity, but they may be unfamiliar with the purchasing program, supply chains, or supplier relationships, leading to unnecessary spending and rework. The post offers five steps: set clear purchasing policies, train the team, explain the 'why' behind policies, streamline with technology to centralize purchasing, and continually gather feedback to improve. It emphasizes that even small purchases can yield big…
The article offers seven tips for controlling company credit card use: set expectations, limit liabilities, monitor spend, require receipts, set alerts, approve and control, and consider digitizing expenses. It emphasizes that automating expense processes provides real-time visibility and reduces misuse.
SAP Concur blog discusses challenges in K-12 school employee spending management. A 2018 New York Times article citing a Federal Department of Education survey states 94% of public school teachers reported spending an average of $479 of their own money on classroom supplies, with 7% spending more than $1,000. An audit of Denver Public Schools found $92 million worth of Visa transactions over two and a half years, with $2 million in purchases that appeared to contradict school policy but were approved. The article recommends automating travel, expense, and invoice processes to improve efficiency, compliance, and budget visibility.
SAP Concur blog recommends clear expense policies for work-from-home employees, covering internet, cellular, utilities, computer equipment, office furniture, and client gifts. It stresses defining reimbursement scope, pre-approval processes, and supplier choices, and suggests forming a stakeholder team to review the policy.
A SAP Concur blog post targets aerospace, defense, and government contracting organizations, promoting Concur Invoice's accounts payable automation. It says automating AP can reduce manual work, stabilize operations, and provide spend visibility during uncertainty; the solution uses SAP Leonardo machine learning, less human validation, and a secure cloud. Teams can capture vendor invoices remotely, managers can approve invoices via the Concur Mobile app, AP teams get near real-time visibility, and users can edit audit thresholds and choose payment vendor options with one click.
SAP Concur published an accounts payable (AP) guide explaining that AP refers to money a business owes its creditors, with a typical process covering invoice delivery, review, approval, and payment. Citing a survey of 420 businesses across five countries, it notes 69% of respondents cited inefficiency of manual processes and 56% reported missing documentation. AP automation digitizes vendor invoicing; AIIM research shows an average 29.2% reduction in invoice processing costs, with nearly one-third of businesses cutting costs by 50% or more.
This SAP Concur blog post emphasizes the importance of automated expense reporting for small businesses. Manual reports pass through many hands and often face delays due to missing receipts or errors. Automated systems like Concur Expense allow employees to photograph receipts, reducing errors and speeding up approval and reimbursement. Cloud technology makes reports accessible anytime.
This SAP Concur blog explores AI applications in travel and expense management. AI analyzes data, provides insights, automates processes, reduces errors, and enables predictive analytics. For example, AI can detect fraud patterns and optimize budget negotiations. IDC predicts AI-powered enterprises will see 100% increase in knowledge worker productivity by 2025. SAP Concur invests in AI to help customers improve efficiency.
SAP Concur examines how onerous tasks such as manual expense reports, invoice entry, and reimbursement processes cause employee stress, waste time, and hurt business performance, citing Gallup data showing that companies with high employee engagement achieve higher productivity, profitability, and lower turnover.
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, businesses lose more than $3.5 trillion each year to fraudsters. Any employee reimbursement program carries fraud risk. The article recommends four measures: specify which apps employees may and may not use and update expense policy; implement a corporate card program to integrate T&E data and tighten controls; go beyond automation to integration for real-time visibility and tamper prevention; and conduct regular reviews and audits of the expense management system.
A SAP Concur blog case study describes how RXBAR, a whole-food protein bar company, needed more transparent expense data to support agile decisions during rapid growth. RXBAR implemented Concur Expense, a cloud-based automated employee expense solution. Kelsey Letizia, VP of Finance & Global Controller, said the tool makes it easy for employees and finance to track spending and includes a mobile app for on-the-go expense tracking. Better expense visibility let her make more informed business decisions quickly.
SAP Concur's 'Let's automate that' campaign collects employee-shared finance hacks. The article highlights the drawbacks of manual processes and suggests automating spend management to improve efficiency and reduce errors.
SAP Concur explains how its Concur Connect apps help life sciences organizations meet healthcare provider (HCP) data compliance requirements under transparency rules such as Open Payments, partnering with healthcare database specialists MedPro and IMS Health to reduce manual entry, improve data accuracy, and lower compliance costs.
In a 12-minute video, Kyle Lieblein, senior solutions consultant for SAP Concur, and Don Carnevale, director of corporate marketing at NeoSystems LLC, discuss the importance of efficient accounts payable processes and tools, and share specific questions federal contractors should ask about their AP system.
A SAP Concur blog post says most companies are still in the early vision and planning stages of AI and ML deployment, but these technologies can be used now to transform travel and expense processes. It notes that as countries increase regulations and enforcement, managing T&E compliance is more important than ever, and traveling employees face stricter immigration and taxation rules, such as having to file a foreign tax return for a single business trip. The post says AI- and ML-enabled solutions connect to systems inside and outside the organization to capture and analyze T&E data, helping companies track employee movements, identify hidden risks, prevent non-compliant practices and incre…
Citing research by Oxford Economics with SAP Concur, the blog notes that 1 in 3 employees who expect a seamless technology experience do not get one. Poor travel and expense technology can lower compliance, efficiency, and retention. Mobile receipt capture, automated approvals, embedded policy prompts, and integrated itinerary and safety information can improve employee experience while raising compliance and efficiency.
SAP Concur article discusses how expense automation and mobile AI are changing traditional expense reporting. It cites client PoHwer reducing claim compilation from 3-4 hours per month to 30 minutes. The article also notes that 95% of CFOs consider cloud-based applications critically or very important to financial performance, and advises businesses to embrace automation with an open mind.
SAP Concur argues that as companies expand into international markets, their financial and IT systems become increasingly complex and decentralized, making it hard to gain the visibility and control needed to manage SAP Concur solutions. It cites Deloitte's Global Outsourcing Survey (2018, more than 500 executives) that the focus of outsourcing has shifted from traditional work transfer to upfront transformation and automation, and that organizations see 'buying' capabilities in the marketplace as generally faster and more scalable than developing them internally. It describes the Preferred Care service, which offers Authorized Support Contact training, tailored release support, product roa…
SAP Concur published guidance for travel and expense administrators on raising employee adoption and engagement with its tools, covering product familiarity, training resources, admin messaging guides, Concur Experience Optimizer for employee sentiment, digital adoption software, and in-product messaging.
SAP Concur published an article emphasizing that in the economic volatility caused by the pandemic, businesses need to digitalize spend management to monitor costs and cash flow. The article notes that finance teams need deep insight into every aspect of company spend, and SAP Concur solutions integrate, automate, and make spend management processes accessible on any device. It also cites an AMI Partners study showing SAP Concur solutions lead to 25% greater cost savings on travel and expense management (US$40,000 per year) and 16% more time saved (122 hours per week) compared to major competitors, and 21% greater cost savings on invoice management ($42,000 per year) and 35% more time saved…
Corporate Spending Innovations launched CSI Paysystems, an integrated payments automation platform, within the SAP Concur App Center. The integration with Concur Invoice streamlines accounts payable automation, covering invoice capture, approval workflows, payment decisioning, and reconciliation. Customers can sync vendor data, scan and code invoices, automatically send payment data to CSI Paysystems for supplier payments including secure virtual card payments, and view payment status and settlement data within Concur Invoice.
SAP Concur's blog notes that AI can reduce manual effort and errors while improving employee retention, engagement, and productivity. It argues that barriers to AI deployment are lower than ever, with RPA and low-code/no-code tools enabling in-house bot development. AI-powered document analysis can automate expense and invoice approval, freeing employees for higher-value work.
SAP Concur announced that effective September 11, 2018, it released a Personalized Concur Open service status dashboard, letting users view the status of their own account's services and subscribe to relevant updates. The feature also adds a two-year history of incidents that affected the user and, in many cases, a Detailed Root Cause Analysis PDF download. The dashboard continues to show only P1 incidents, and users log in with existing credentials.
A SAP Concur blog post recommends using corporate card usage to gauge spend governance. It suggests a best practice of 80% card transactions and 20% cash spend to save authentication time before approval. Citing a JP Morgan study, it says automated systems boost clerical productivity and companies offering electronic expense reporting are more likely to use data mining to flag out-of-policy spend or card misuse. When employees use corporate cards, companies receive financial institution feeds on the posting day, giving visibility into amounts due and payment due dates, allowing department heads to adjust spending timing. The article provides a rebate formula: (total cash spend × percentage…