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  1. SAP Concur Blog

    Go Back to School with IT Modernization Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act Funding for K-12 Sch…

    A SAP Concur blog post notes that K-12 school districts can use American Rescue Plan Act funding for IT modernization. Congress passed three COVID-19 relief bills, and the Department of Education established the ESSER Fund for eligible expenses like curriculum, IT, and building maintenance. ESSER I, II, and III funds must be spent by September 30, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. The article recommends improving travel, expense, and invoice management processes for transparent fiscal management.

  2. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur Implementation: People Before System

    A SAP Concur blog post shared insights from a webinar featuring three U.S. small business finance professionals discussing their experiences implementing SAP Concur. The main takeaway was that implementation should prioritize people and team dynamics over the system itself. One panelist emphasized evaluating team strengths and adjusting roles before implementation. Another noted that Concur Invoice helped save on office space costs, improved employee satisfaction, and sped up supplier payments. A third advised treating SAP Concur as an investment rather than an expense and leveraging its customizability to streamline processes. SAP Concur research shows that after implementing expense and t…

  3. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Banks Need to Keep Pace with Customers' Accelerating Demands

    SAP Concur argues that the current economic environment has magnified the need for companies to embrace digital transformation, and that corporate clients expect consumer-like user experiences from their banks. It cites IDC that the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of digital transformation for staying agile. It suggests banks consider three things: co-innovation with SAP Concur, an easy and scalable single spend management platform, and extending reach to improve share of wallet, credit utilization, customer churn, and satisfaction. It says SAP Concur solutions serve more than 46,000 customers globally, helping them realize the full value of commercial cards and other payment s…

  4. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur Launches Online Business Agility Assessment for Spend Control

    SAP Concur has released an online Business Agility Assessment tool to help companies evaluate their spend management capabilities. The assessment examines expense management processes, vendor invoice management, tool usability, system integration, spend control levels, and technology provider landscape. It notes that digitalization and integration are prerequisites for effective company spend management, and that gaps in spend visibility can open up unnecessary risks and costs. Upon completion, users gain access to a spend management toolkit with best-practice initiatives, continuity plan templates, and partner app information.

  5. SAP Concur Blog

    Your Expense Reports Could Be Writing Themselves. Here's How

    SAP Concur article discusses AI and machine learning in expense management, partnering with The New York Times to explain automated expense reports. It notes AI can reduce manual entry errors by up to 66%, improving accuracy and compliance. For example, Cardinal Health saved up to 10,000 hours per month by automating expense reports. The article emphasizes complementary roles for humans and machines, with AI creating new efficiencies rather than unemployment.

  6. SAP Concur Blog

    Driving Business Agility, Growth, and Employee Engagement Through Transformative Finance and IT

    A SAP Concur blog post discusses how finance and IT leaders can drive business transformation through collaboration. It emphasizes that in rapidly changing markets, finance and IT need to break down organizational silos and leverage technologies like smart automation, AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics to achieve spend management, expense compliance, and cost control. Cloud-based and mobile-ready solutions ensure business continuity and improve employee satisfaction. The article also notes that real-time spend visibility enables companies to optimize supplier contracts and forecast months in advance.

  7. SAP Concur Blog

    Wrangling Processes in the IT Wild West: Penn State and SAP Concur

    In this SAP Concur podcast, Bennett Ulmer, Operations Analyst at Penn State, discusses optimizing IT financial processes. They used Concur Request to build a pre-approval process, streamlining spend management. Ulmer emphasizes collaboration between IT and business units and plans to integrate systems to avoid duplication. Automation reduced manual errors and improved efficiency.

  9. SAP Concur Blog

    Moving away from the invoice black hole

    The article notes that manual invoice processing often involves paper handling, convoluted workflows and unreliable storage, creating an 'invoice black hole.' Invoice automation captures invoice data, routes it to approvers via custom rules and workflows, and schedules payments, reducing manual touches, avoiding late fees, and flagging discrepancies before payment through two- and three-way matching. Cloud-based solutions require no expensive software installation and can scale with the company.

  10. SAP Concur Blog

    Justifying the Cost of an Automated Expense Solution

    This SAP Concur blog post guides businesses on justifying the investment in an automated expense management system. It poses questions about labor costs, data integrity, report generation time, visibility, opportunity costs, mobility, policy violation detection, cash flow, integration, and time savings. By evaluating these areas, companies can build a business case showing how automation improves efficiency, reduces errors, and yields long-term savings.

  11. SAP Concur Blog

    Improving Visibility and Efficiency: The Lure of Automated AP

    The article notes that despite cloud technologies, most companies still rely on manual AP. An IFO study shows on average 50% of invoices are received by paper, 37% by email and 5% by fax. A 2016 Aberdeen Group study found manual invoice approval takes an average of 17 days and costs $31 per invoice. Ardent Partners research shows automation can reduce invoice processing costs by up to 70%.

  12. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Automated Expense Management Key to Finance Efficiency

    A SAP Concur blog post cites a commissioned Forrester Consulting study finding that nearly two-thirds of surveyed SMB financial leaders picked managing expenses/cash flow as their top financial challenge. The study shows SMBs' key expense and travel challenges focus on user-induced errors and long time requirements. Smaller businesses (1-499 employees) called out time requirements for paperwork and approvals as their top challenge, while larger businesses (500-999 employees) gave a small edge to inaccuracies caused by human error. Surveyed businesses considered improved process efficiency the most important benefit of automated expense and travel solutions. More than three-quarters of SMBs…

  13. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: The Business Value of Concur Invoice and 505% ROI

    A SAP Concur blog post cites an IDC white paper finding that eight interviewed businesses improved their AP processes with Concur Invoice: staff time on invoice processing fell 68%, employee compliance rose to nearly 100%, late payments to vendors dropped 67%, line-of-business productivity rose 11%, and IT staff time managing AP solutions fell 29%. The white paper also projects annual benefits of $775,401 per organization ($15,418 per 1,000 invoices) and a 505% ROI over five years.

  14. SAP Concur Blog

    Is This Outdated Process Costing Your Business?

    The article notes manual invoice processes are costly and many financial decision makers are unaware. Outdated systems, inaccuracies, labor costs and decreased productivity are four key issues. ACFE estimates a typical organization loses 5% of revenue to fraud annually; AMI-Partners found implementing a vendor invoice management solution saves an average of $13 per invoice and $34,116 annually.

  15. SAP Concur Blog

    The software that saves you from expense reports

    Citing Gartner's Market Guide for Travel Expense Management Software, the article notes cloud-based SaaS offerings generally offer the most functionality, TEM providers vary greatly in meeting industry and country requirements, TEM specialists outperform ERP providers with focused innovations, most offer mobile receipt capture but differ in what they do with the image, and finance and procurement teams should not negatively impact end-user experience while automating spend policy. Gartner recommends seeking a SaaS solution and making usability a key selection criterion.

  16. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Duplicate Invoice Payments May Cost SMBs $12,000 a Month

    Based on invoice data from September 2015 to August 2016, SAP Concur says duplicate payments are a common and preventable error in accounts payable. Its SMB customers (up to 1,000 employees) process about 450 invoices in a busy month, with a 1.29% duplication rate—roughly six duplicate invoices monthly—and an average duplicate value of $2,034, implying about $12,000 in potential monthly outlay if paid in error. Concur Invoice matches invoice details to identify duplicates and can be configured to alert or automatically halt processing.

  18. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: It's Time to Let Go of Your Expense Tracking Spreadsheets

    A SAP Concur blog post discusses the limitations of using spreadsheets for expense tracking in small businesses. It states spreadsheets lack version control, leading to inconsistent and inaccurate data; make it hard to quickly draw conclusions; are prone to small errors in data entry or formulas that balloon into larger ones; can't provide historical views to spot trends; make data aggregation a nightmare; and lack flexibility and scalability. It recommends considering a purpose-built expense management system and offers best practices for finding suitable software.

  19. SAP Concur Blog

    Why employee spend matters for sales leaders

    The article notes that if administrative processes like expense reports take too long, sales team productivity suffers. Enterprises adopting mobile and digital technologies can accelerate growth potential. Employees expect consumer-like experiences, spend has shifted to 'employee-initiated spend' across multiple payment methods, and disconnected systems hinder accurate budgeting and reporting. Sales leaders should ask how to leverage technology to improve productivity, connect travel and expense data, and identify spending channels.

  20. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: It's Time to Get Your Invoice Process Out of the '80s

    A SAP Concur blog post lists five reasons businesses should move past outdated invoice systems: better visibility, reduced costs, less paperwork, increased productivity, and user mobility. It states many CFOs and financial decision makers don't feel they have big-picture visibility into invoicing and office expenses; manual paper-based processes drive up labor costs, with businesses unknowingly throwing away thousands to millions of dollars each year on manual AP steps that could be automated; physical documents are subject to loss, fire, flood, and theft; and mobile and cloud solutions allow invoice processing and approvals via tablets and smartphones, reducing late payments.

  22. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: A Decades-Long Journey Centered on Customer Success

    A SAP Concur blog post reviews its customer-success journey: founded in 1993, it focused early on on-premise expense-reporting automation, embraced the cloud and expanded offerings in its second decade, developed mobile solutions as devices proliferated, and in its third decade offered global solutions meeting local requirements while opening data via APIs and forging industry partnerships. It says Concur has 7,000 employees and embeds customer success across culture, innovation, data, and organization.

  23. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Don't Get Blown Away by Manual Expense Processes

    A SAP Concur blog post states that manual, paper-based expense report processes can take hours, with employees spending large portions of their days digging through receipts and manually inputting expenditures, while finance departments review and reconcile reports. It cites SMB Group data: 30% of SMBs support telecommuting for 20% or more of employees, 18% expect the percentage of telecommuting workers to increase next year, 57% say 20% or more of their workforce travels for work, and 14% expect this number to increase next year. It recommends SMBs choose a scalable mobile expense system like Concur Expense, where employees simply photograph receipts.

  24. SAP Concur Blog

    Are You the Company’s Invoice Guru? Here's How to Improve Your Processes

    The article notes that many SMBs rely on a single employee for AP, and manual processes are time-consuming and expensive. An IDC study found that after moving from manual to Concur Invoice automation, total processing time per invoice dropped 53%, staff time decreased 64%, savings equaled $7,537 per 1,000 invoices, vendors received payments 51% faster, delayed payments fell 67%, IT staff time fell 29%, and overall annual benefits reached $14,953 per 1,000 invoices.

  25. SAP Concur Blog

    Six Questions to Ask Before Going Global

    This SAP Concur blog post lists six questions businesses should consider before expanding internationally: market advantages, regulatory hurdles, local needs, product fit, assumptions (like internet speed), and readiness to start over. It emphasizes that cloud-based tools can help small businesses handle tax and compliance, and suggests hiring local experts to navigate cultural and legal differences.

  27. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: How Concur Invoice Works

    A SAP Concur blog post details Concur Invoice features: automating the entire invoice management process from capture to pay, integrating with Concur Travel and Expense. Invoices can be submitted via email, fax, hard copy, or electronically. AI-powered OCR extracts data, validated and corrected by an auditor or invoice verifier. The system automatically matches invoices to POs and goods receipts, flags exceptions, and uses dynamic approval workflows. Concur Invoice Analytics provides real-time visibility into invoice status and spend. It cites Prison Fellowship, which saved minutes per invoice after using Concur Invoice.

  28. SAP Concur Blog

    The 3 C's of Expense and Invoice Policy Compliance

    SAP Concur blog emphasizes that simply writing expense and invoice policies into an employee manual is not enough to ensure compliance. Achieving compliance requires collaboration, comprehension, and communication. Collaboration involves consulting department heads to ensure policies are feasible; comprehension requires clear, jargon-free language; communication means policies are accessible and embedded in workflows.

  30. SAP Concur Blog

    6 Expense Management Considerations for Small Business Owners

    The article offers six considerations for small business owners moving from spreadsheets to an expense management solution: policy compliance, reporting and visibility, cloud-based deployment, integration, migration support, and ease of use. The solution should automate policy checks, offer preconfigured report dashboards, update via subscription, integrate with existing applications, provide an implementation team for data migration, and support OCR receipt capture.

  31. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur Solutions Overview: Travel, Expense, and Invoice

    A SAP Concur blog post briefly introduces its solutions: Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice work seamlessly with each other and integrate with existing ERP, HR, accounting, and other business systems to create a single connected process for managing company spend, helping save time and money, negotiate better rates with suppliers, and create happier travelers. It also provides links to an end-to-end solution demo and self-guided demos.

  32. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: How to Prevent Fraud and Enforce Global Policy Compliance

    A SAP Concur blog post discusses expense fraud and compliance challenges for global businesses. It cites an Oversight Systems study finding that 37% of business travelers had at least one exception on their T&E reports, and estimates the typical organization loses 5% of annual revenues to fraud each year. It recommends distinguishing real fraud from unintentional mistakes, using corporate card programs, receipt requirements, and communication plans to reduce errors and focus on actual fraud. It also suggests zero-tolerance policies, third-party audits, and random checks.

  33. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: 5 Ways It Pays to Pay Vendors on Time

    A SAP Concur blog post states that processing a paper invoice costs $23 on average, while automation reduces the cost to $3.41 and cuts processing time by up to 75%. It lists five benefits of paying vendors on time: capturing maximum early-payment discounts and avoiding late-payment penalties and interest; building a positive reputation; receiving VIP service and pricing from vendors; preserving good credit; and gaining vendor flexibility during cash flow crunches. It also notes Concur Invoice gives suppliers a portal to view payment status and remittance information.

  34. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Six Ways Automation Can Unlock T&E Savings

    A SAP Concur blog post argues that rapid changes in technology and traveler behavior are reshaping corporate travel, requiring modern solutions to control employee spend. It lists six ways automation can uncover savings, including reducing manual-entry errors, cutting management time, and gaining visibility into mobile spend. It cites a 2015 Oversight Systems study finding one in ten travelers submits at least one duplicate expense in error, at roughly $50 per error, and notes that poor mobile-contract management can mean overpaying by as much as 30% per device.

  35. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: Building AP Nirvana with Millennials

    A SAP Concur blog post cites surveys finding that 93% of Millennials say up-to-date technology is one of the most important factors at work; a PwC study found 59% of Millennials value an employer's willingness to provide state-of-the-art technology when considering a job, and 78% say access to technology they like makes them more effective. It argues traditional AP systems with manual input and paper shuffling conflict with tech-savvy Millennials, and says Millennials will comprise 40% of the working population by 2020.

  36. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur and IDC: Five Stages of T&E Management Maturity

    An IDC study commissioned by SAP Concur identifies five stages of travel and expense management (TEM) maturity: paper-based reporting, automated processes, purpose-built mobile/cloud apps, platform ecosystem, and intelligent/predictive processes. IDC says less-mature TEM processes become a mounting source of lost productivity and revenue and increased employee dissatisfaction as companies expand. Greater maturity brings returns in productivity, support time, travel costs, and risk.

  37. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur Explains What T&E Means and Its Business Impact

    A SAP Concur blog explains that T&E stands for travel and expense, a major operational cost. It says T&E expense management is considered the second-most difficult operating cost to control, 80% of organizations still rely on manual processes, and almost 20% of T&E expenses fall outside policy. Knowing real spend can help negotiate lower supplier prices, avoid duplicate or fraudulent expenses, and speed employee reimbursement.

  38. SAP Concur Blog

    SAP Concur: How Usable Technology Affects T&E Management Efficiency

    A SAP Concur blog lists five reasons business technology should be easy to use: productivity, IT time savings, less shadow IT, cost control, and reduced employee frustration. It cites a Samanage survey saying U.S. companies waste $2 trillion annually on outdated technology, with 25.4% of workers saying company technology and policies hurt productivity and nearly 31% of millennials agreeing. It suggests surveying employees to identify which technologies to simplify first.

  39. SAP Concur Blog

    Gartner Report: TEM Innovation Is Mostly SaaS, Covering 16 Market Players

    A SAP Concur blog cites Gartner's Market Guide for Travel Expense Management Software, saying the most innovative TEM solutions are only available as SaaS and the report covers 16 market players. Gartner recommends using TEM innovation to demonstrate digital transformation, and notes ERP, procurement, and HCM vendors are deepening TEM functionality. SAP Concur says it leads TEM with more than 75% market share and the most differentiated solution.

  40. SAP Concur Blog

    IDC: SAP Concur Customers Gain $1.96M Annually, 650% Three-Year ROI

    An IDC study commissioned by SAP Concur interviewed seven organizations using SAP Concur solutions, with an average employee size of 1,906. IDC calculates an average benefit of $1.96 million per customer per year ($97,447 per 100 users) and a 650% ROI over three years. Benefits come from less time planning travel and completing reports, lower support staffing, better compliance and audit efficiency, and analytics-driven savings. The article also lists a five-stage TEM maturity model.