This SAP Concur blog explains compliance, including policy and regulatory compliance. It notes that T&E is one of the largest costs after payroll and supplier invoices, and is vulnerable to compliance risks. Common areas include expense, invoice, and travel management. Automation improves compliance, reduces fraud, avoids fines, and boosts employee satisfaction.
SAP, in collaboration with Bain & Company, outlines six strategies for building business resilience through digital finance transformation: scenario planning, strengthening working capital, improving spend visibility, finding cost savings, eliminating low-value work, and planning for new ways of working. It emphasizes automating expense and invoice management and integrating with ERP systems to provide real-time data and analytics for cost control, cash flow optimization, and future planning.
A SAP Concur blog post describes how global medical devices company Smith & Nephew eliminated manager expense approval. Travel and expense lead Jorge Monge says the biggest challenge was assuring managers that expenses are properly controlled and compliant. After adopting artificial intelligence technologies, the company not only completely removed the manager approval step but also increased expense reporting accuracy. Monge says Concur Detect enabled the change and positioned the company as a benchmark internally and externally. The company took a top-down approach, securing buy-in from compliance, legal, and communications stakeholders, and emphasized efficiency and compliance benefits.…
A SAP Concur blog post discusses travel and spend management challenges for companies expanding globally or maintaining overseas supplier relationships. Citing the IMF's World Economic Outlook Update, it notes international trade pressures and a plateau in global growth threaten the certainty of global expansion. Common challenges listed include managing multiple complex travel policies and capturing data in outdated or disparate systems; supporting multiple languages, currencies, banking institutions, and financial regulations; under-recovery of VAT by US-based companies sending travelers across borders; compliance with international laws including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA);…
A SAP Concur blog post argues that manual expense reporting is slow, error-prone, and costly over time, with every step requiring manual handling. Paper receipts get lost, making reconciliation difficult. The post recommends moving to an automated system to save finance team time, reduce errors, speed reimbursement, and improve employee satisfaction. Automation also enables mobile receipt capture, eliminating lost receipts and improving real-time visibility into company spend.
A SAP Concur blog post notes the pandemic changed how physicians approach continuing medical education (CME). A 2020 PlatformQ Health survey of 200 physicians found 9 in 10 said they will use online courses as their primary CME format post-COVID-19, while at least 22% still plan to seek most CME at in-person meetings. The article lists three CME spend management problems: manual processes relying on spreadsheets and paper receipts are hard to manage and error-prone with remote work; limited visibility makes it hard to track compliance as online and incentive-based CME grows; and budgets are hard to control without pre-approval and adjustment capability. SAP Concur customer data shows 40% of…
The SAP Concur blog published an end-of-year survival checklist for finance teams, noting that December 19 was the busiest expense day last year. It recommends reducing distractions, holding team planning meetings, and evaluating and automating expense processes to handle the year-end peak. The checklist covers turning off message alerts, scheduling focused work time, holding year-end planning meetings, creating vacation calendars, reviewing current expense processes, and identifying automation opportunities.
An SAP Concur blog post notes that remote and hybrid working is increasing the number and creativity of finance hacks, such as couriering invoices to remote employees for approval, using random audits to detect expense errors, and saving self-booked travel plans in calendar invites. While these workarounds may seem to keep spend data flowing, they drive increased operational costs, risks, and complexity, while decreasing spending visibility, control, and employee productivity. Survey data cited shows only 39% of U.S. companies say they have the right systems to adapt quickly to changing business needs, 43% of businesses with digitized invoice management saw increased agility and resiliency,…
SAP Concur says many aerospace, defense, and government contracting (ADG) organizations still use manual, paper-based travel and expense processes, which can frustrate employees, cause costly errors and noncompliance, and raise fraud risk. The sector also faces Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) audit requirements, government oversight, and red tape. SAP Concur offers mobile-friendly travel and expense management, using automation and integration to control employee spend and meet government audit and compliance checks, with ADG packages that include tools to detect fraud and support travelers in emergencies.
The article discusses how companies may need to re-platform their SAP Concur site due to M&A, expansion, etc. Re-platforming offers benefits such as scalability, reduced maintenance, improved reporting, new functionality, and site consolidation. Acquis Consulting Group provides a seven-step approach to streamline implementation and reduce costs.
A SAP Concur blog post highlights three tools for small businesses: Audit Services, which combines human auditors and AI to identify misuse, waste and noncompliant spend; reporting solutions that draw on discretionary spend data held on one platform for easy access and visualization; and App Center connections linking employees to popular enterprise applications, travel brands and rewards programs. The post says these tools help control cash flow, ensure compliance, reduce costs and mitigate fraud risk.
SAP Concur argues employee spend data helps HR address three enterprise risks: duty of care, interstate and global tax compliance, and employee experience. An Oxford Economics study found only 26% of companies feel very or completely effective at managing T&E compliance. The article recommends knowing in advance where employees travel or reside, placing itinerary data into tracking solutions, and connecting travel, expense, and payment data to support risk management and budget decisions.
A SAP Concur blog post states that travel directors face external pressures including the shared economy, supplier direct bookings, traveler satisfaction, and duty of care. Employees are spending across more categories and using more payment methods—credit cards, ghost cards, checks, cash, and P-cards—often managed by disconnected systems, making a single source of truth difficult. A GBTA Foundation report found only 47% of travel managers report their online booking and expense tools are integrated; only 20% use technology to capture bookings made outside the travel program, while 42% of North American travelers prefer booking directly on supplier websites. An Oxford Economics survey of 1,…
A SAP Concur blog post introduces The Intelligent Business, a five-episode podcast series created in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, exploring how businesses can use emerging technologies to automate more processes and control company spending. It summarizes each episode's themes: AI plays a huge part in simplifying spend management and automating processes; more sources of data allow better service to travelers on the road and keep them safer, lowering risk and increasing employee satisfaction; manual expense reports are time-consuming and could result in unintentional T&E fraud, while AI-driven technology makes receipt capture, reporting, and approvals nearly effortless; AI allo…
An SAP Concur blog post argues that expense data is the true single source for travel spend truth, as it captures all spend not going onto corporate credit cards and all supplier-direct spend, and is tied back to the company's General Ledger data. GL information is used by the CFO for monthly and quarterly earnings reporting, making expense data more credible than TMC or supplier data. The article advises travel managers to work closely with expense management teams, understand how expense data can be dissected, align with finance analysts on GL spend categories, and restructure travel reports to align with GL categories.
A SAP Concur blog post says AI has entered the workplace, helping save time and reduce paperwork, for example by replacing paper receipts and tedious manual data entry with automated travel and expense management tools. A.G. Lambert, SVP of product strategy at SAP Concur, says "AI doesn't replace employees, it augments them." The post mentions a partnership with Forbes examining how technology improves business processes, highlighting AI-assisted auditing, travel policy bots and tools that improve cash flow management.
SAP Concur was named the Most Admired Technology Company in business travel for the seventh consecutive year. The article highlights innovations including expanded Concur Locate safety features, embedded Airbnb listings in Concur Travel, Slack bots, and the Budget solution.
This SAP Concur blog compares cash and corporate card payments, stating cards are cheaper, easier to track, and reduce fraud. Cash is hard to manage and prone to errors and non-compliance. Cards provide real-time data, increase rebates, enhance fraud detection, and boost employee satisfaction. It suggests training and mandating card use to increase adoption.
SAP Concur announced Budget, a new solution making budget data visible, near real-time, and actionable. Citing an Oxford Economics report, it says strong profitability and revenue growth are tied to effective cost control. Travel spend has doubled to more than $1.2 trillion in 15 years, and employee-initiated spend is now the second-largest expense in organizations. When spend data is incomplete, inaccurate, or late, budgets mean little, managers cannot be held accountable, and poor visibility leads to poor decisions including company-wide budget freezes. Budget synthesizes data from Expense, Invoice, Purchase Request, and Travel Request into a comprehensive dashboard, with mobile and web d…
Conferma Pay has expanded its role in the SAP Concur partner program, integrating its virtual payment technology with Concur Invoice. When a business receives a supplier invoice, a virtual card can be generated for the specific amount within Concur Invoice, and pre-authorized payment details are securely provided to the supplier. The virtual payment is automatically reconciled against the invoice, reducing manual work for finance teams. Paul Raymond, Director Strategic Relationships at Conferma Pay, said this expands virtual card payments to a wider range of B2B scenarios, increasing automation, reducing fraud risk, and improving spend control.
The article notes that as spending becomes increasingly decentralized and employees are empowered to make more spending decisions, corporate risk rises, and the burden of managing compliance, internal policy, fraud, and employee safety increases. SAP Concur solutions audit more than one million expense reports per month. Companies using SAP Concur solutions achieved 28% improvement in auditing-staff efficiency, 62% increase in the number of employees following T&E policies, 67% reduction in lost receipts, and $672,000 in savings on business travel per organization.
SAP Concur blog cites an AMI Partners survey of over 400 financial decision-makers at SMBs, identifying barriers to automation such as lack of IT expertise, cost, and resources. However, automation delivers time savings (15% decrease in expense report processing time, 16% decrease in invoice processing time), cost savings (average annual savings of $30,000 for T&E automation and nearly $34,000 for invoice automation), improved employee satisfaction (up to 80% reduction in reimbursement time), and better compliance.
SAP Concur announced three new spend-management products: Concur Budget, which provides dashboards for strategic decision-making and financial control; Concur Drive, which uses smart sensors on mobile devices to automatically capture mileage and handle reimbursement; and Concur Detect by AppZen, which applies machine learning to audit 100% of expense reports before reimbursement and integrates with Concur Expense. SAP Concur said the tools aim to simplify spend management for organizations of any size.
SAP Concur announced its 2020 Innovation Awards winners at its annual Fusion customer event: Airbus Americas, Cisco, Globe Telecom, PACCAR and VMware. Airbus Americas adopted a paperless T&E solution, saving $1 million in employee hours over three years and lifting travel policy compliance to 85%. Cisco deployed Concur Travel and Expense in more than 88 countries in under a year, with employee satisfaction rising from 48% to 77%. Globe Telecom reached 100% adoption four months after go-live. PACCAR identified $100K in potential annual savings. VMware cut its expense processing and payment workflow from up to 11 days to four or less and saw a 75% reduction in employee complaints.
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA), whose employees spend most of their time outdoors, needed mobile expense management. The organization adopted SAP Concur's Concur Expense solution to automate expense report submission, review, and processing, integrating with enterprise resource management systems and credit card programs to give finance teams greater visibility into employee spend. Employees can submit expenses via mobile phone anytime, reducing paperwork and errors and speeding up reimbursement.
Global medical devices company Smith & Nephew shifted from an overly compliance-driven approach to an employee-centric focus after management changes, scaling operations across 44 countries. Using focus groups and surveys, it applied AI and Concur Detect to streamline travel and expense processes and ensure compliance, returning over 20,000 productivity hours to employees, with managers no longer approving expenses individually.
The George Washington University (GW) operates in more than 100 countries, creating a large volume of student and faculty travel and expense management. Manual reimbursement processes and siloed data previously made it hard for security teams to track travelers. After adopting SAP Concur solutions, students and faculty can photograph receipts and auto-generate expense reports, improving finance approval efficiency; the security team uses Concur Locate to consolidate location data, proactively monitor risks, and send notifications to affected individuals.
A SAP Concur blog post introduces Taxback International's sales tax recovery service for higher education institutions. Many universities and colleges leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table each year by not fully utilizing sales tax exemptions. Taxback International leveraged its VAT recovery experience, internal audit expertise, and integrations with SAP Concur solutions to develop a sales tax recovery service. In a pilot, a large university recovered $150,000 in sales taxes without expending resources or staff time. Taxback also provided reporting data to help the university improve its front-end processes.
The article introduces how Concur Invoice helps higher education institutions automate accounts payable, reduce manual work, provide spend visibility, and enable remote invoice approval via mobile app, ensuring audit compliance.
SAP Concur article emphasizes that cash and personal credit card spending are difficult to track, leading to hidden spend. Recommendations include raising corporate card thresholds, lowering cash thresholds, and automating expense reports to increase visibility and compliance.
A SAP Concur blog post, citing the 2022 ACFE Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report, says the use of AI and machine learning in anti-fraud programs is expected to more than double over the next two years. It notes state government agencies reported a median of $91,000 in fraud losses in 2020 and local government entities $75,000, and recommends county finance teams use data sources such as exception reporting, policy violations and predictive analytics to identify fraud risk.
SAP Concur announced its 2019 Innovation Award winners at its annual Fusion conference. The awards received 58 entries from customers across 11 countries, with five best-run organizations selected. Winners drove automation, integration, and analytics into travel, expense, and invoice processes. Alteryx saved more than $130K on travel in the last year using SAP Concur and Rocketrip; NEC reduced time spent on travel and expense management by 40%, translating to approximately 200 million yen ($1.8M USD) per year; RED achieved more than 20% annual savings on taxi services by introducing Uber for Business.
A SAP Concur blog post offers four tips for optimizing expense processes: 1. Audit existing processes to identify bottlenecks and fraud opportunities; 2. Evaluate for change, leveraging mobile apps and automation tools to improve compliance and efficiency; 3. Focus on saving time to save money, streamlining processes reduces rework and delays; 4. Take the expense process to the next level by following best practices. The article emphasizes that a clear process reduces employee confusion, non-compliant expenses, and delayed reimbursements, while also decreasing fraud risk.
A SAP Concur blog post cites GSMA's 2020 Mobile Economy report, which states that in 2020 5G will shift from hype to reality but primarily for businesses rather than consumers, and that GSMA expects 5G to be the first generation in mobile history to have a bigger impact on enterprise than consumers. The article argues that as 5G adoption goes mainstream, back-office workflows and processes will be further streamlined, including travel and expense (T&E) management. T&E transformation is increasingly seen as an opportunity to reduce operational costs and boost employee productivity and job satisfaction, with business leaders seeing opportunities to cut costs by implementing new technologies t…
A guest post on the SAP Concur blog by World Travel Inc. discusses traveler experience in global travel programs. It cites a 2019 whitepaper by SAP Concur and Wakefield Research, noting that better travel solutions lead to happier and more dedicated employees. Safety is the top priority for business travelers worldwide, so World Travel is investing in the WorldWatch platform for real-time event monitoring and traveler location. Additionally, single integrated tools and region-specific content help meet market needs.
The SAP Concur blog interviews Anna Crowe on building an authentic corporate culture. The article emphasizes that authenticity starts from the top, requiring transparency and trust, and encouraging vulnerability. An authentic culture improves employee satisfaction, productivity, and profitability, and helps organizations respond flexibly to challenges.
A SAP Concur blog post describes the learning resources available through its customer community to help travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) managers keep up with industry changes. The community surveys customers to understand needs and challenges, and offers a digital community, user groups, Leadership Council content, and the Fusion conference. These resources cover technology improvements, regulatory updates, and global events, aiming to help customers trim costs, improve compliance, and create efficiencies.
A SAP Concur blog post offers recovery preparation advice for small business owners, including setting up expense policies, optimizing AP processes, smart tracking and monitoring of spending, and using technology to increase efficiency. Citing U.S. Small Business Administration data, small businesses generate 44% of economic activity. The article also notes that companies adopting cloud-based technology to automate expense management increased process efficiency by 42%.
SAP Concur published an article explaining the value of expense management automation. It states manual expense management takes a toll on productivity, employee happiness, and the bottom line, while automation can streamline operations, cut costs, and reduce time-wasting tasks. The article analyzes benefits for finance, IT, employees, and CEOs, and lists capabilities automated software should have, such as e-receipts, auto-populating expense reports, ERP integration, card reconciliation, secure data tracking, and mobile app management.
SAP Concur published an article announcing that U.S. Bank Instant Card transactions are now seamlessly integrated into Concur Expense, simplifying expense tracking, reporting, and reconciliation. Instant Card users can easily capture expenses with e-receipts, populate expense reports, and submit for approval from anywhere using their mobile device. Instant Card is a virtual corporate card that can be pushed to the Apple Pay or Google Pay wallets of employees, contractors, or consultants in seconds, and allows companies to set credit limits and expiration dates.