This SAP Concur blog discusses combining AI and human auditors to improve expense report audit efficiency. It notes that automated auditing can reduce the cost of expense report mistakes by 60% and cut audit time by up to 90%. It recommends auditing policy before manager approval to speed payment and reduce intervention.
This SAP Concur blog discusses how digital tax solutions help businesses navigate global tax digitalization. It notes that the UK, China, Brazil, and other countries already require tax digitalization, and businesses can use AI to capture receipts, establish compliance audit trails, increase VAT reclaim, and identify taxable benefits.
This SAP Concur blog lists 7 key components for a corporate credit card policy: eligibility requirements, acceptable uses, credit limits, documentation requirements, cardholder responsibilities, consequences for non-compliance, and written agreement.
This SAP Concur blog post explains the differences between fixed and variable expenses and their impact on cash flow. Fixed expenses like rent and insurance remain stable, while variable expenses like raw materials and business travel fluctuate with activity. It offers strategies such as renegotiating contracts, optimizing inventory, and using automation to detect fraud, aiming to enhance financial resilience.
This SAP Concur blog post introduces four risk management strategies: risk acceptance, risk transference, risk avoidance, and risk reduction. It applies these to business travel and expense management, highlighting the role of technology like AI, data analytics, and mobile apps in risk monitoring and compliance.
SAP Concur published a blog arguing that companies should fully digitalize spend management now to cope with supply chain upheavals, inflation and global tensions. It cites that 90% of CFOs say preparing for the unexpected is their top task, and that finance and AP teams save an estimated 134 hours weekly using SAP Concur invoice management solutions. A fully automated solution spans request-to-payment, including receipt photo capture, automatic corporate card feeds, AI fraud and compliance checks, automated auditing and ERP integration.
SAP announced product and partnership milestones at SAP Concur Fusion 2024 in Las Vegas. SAP Concur, with more than 92 million end users, debuted generative AI capabilities: Concur Request provides intelligent cost estimates, ExpenseIt supports web receipt uploads with automatic expense creation and generative AI hotel folio itemization, and Concur Support adds natural-language search. Concur Travel adds direct hotel and rail integrations (American Express GBT, BCD, CWT RoomIt, FCTG, HRS), UK rail content, Microsoft Teams integration, and emissions viewing and sorting via Thrust Carbon. The new Concur Expense experience partners with Mastercard for automated expense creation.
SAP Concur announced seven 2024 Innovation Award winners showcasing travel and expense automation. Bechtel piloted Concur Select Access powered by Travelfusion to display NDC content alongside GDS fares, reducing out-of-channel direct bookings and improving Duty of Care reporting. Uber used Concur APIs and automation to save more than 5,000 employee hours, automate resolution of over 70% of expense-related help desk tickets, and drive corporate card adoption above 90%. KUKA made hotel and entertainment expense creation seven times faster. Stellantis unified T&E processes across 30 countries, with 98% of employees covered by Concur Expense, estimating savings of more than EUR1 million. PETRO…
A SAP Concur blog explains the role of receipt scanners in expense management. A receipt scanner is a hardware or software tool that converts paper receipts into digital documents via image capture or scanning, with mobile scanning software using smartphone or tablet cameras. Benefits include OCR reducing manual entry errors, cloud-based workflows speeding approvals, improved employee satisfaction, integration with financial systems, enhanced compliance and auditing, and reduced paper use. Selection considerations include hardware versus software, resolution, portability and integration.
SAP Concur announced product and partnership developments at Fusion 2024. Concur Travel adds in-app emissions data (Thrust Carbon integration), enhanced hotel and rail content (direct integrations with American Express GBT, BCD, CWT RoomIt, FCTG, HRS and UK rail content), Microsoft Teams integration and Concur Request integration. TripIt Pro adds risk alerts covering weather, political unrest, labor action, communication outages and select airline alerts. The new Concur Expense experience partners with Mastercard for automated expense creation, and a new Data Delivery Service provides direct access to expense data for analytics tools. SAP also debuted generative AI features including Concur…
SAP Concur announced a new partnership with Mastercard to simplify the expense process. Through a new integration, purchases made on Mastercard corporate cards are captured and automatically populated in Concur Expense, with users alerted immediately if additional information is needed. The integration will be available to select customers globally starting in Q2 2024, and customers can continue banking with preferred partners and utilizing existing card programs. The partnership also includes spending controls and restrictions to encourage expense policy compliance.
At its SAP Concur Fusion customer event, SAP Concur shared its vision for the future of travel and expense management, where these tasks practically manage themselves, removing the need to write expense reports, understand compliance policies, or sacrifice personal preferences. The company said it will develop solutions that are intelligent, predictive, instinctive, and continuously learning, leveraging its position as one of the largest aggregators of travel and expense data to improve efficiency, compliance, and employee satisfaction through generative AI and machine learning.
SAP Concur published a guide on how to do an expense report, covering steps such as collecting receipts and recording date, vendor, expense category, taxes, and receipt images. The article notes that travel-related expenses at small and medium businesses increased 178% in 2022, and discusses templates, tool choices, and expense fraud risk, stating that around 5% of a typical organization's annual revenue is lost to fraud.
SAP Concur published an article explaining what per diem is and how it works, covering three common expense categories: lodging, meals, and incidentals. The article describes fixed allowances and reimbursable allowances, as well as a mixed model, and notes that many organizations base rates on federal per diem rates published by the GSA or IRS, with the U.S. Department of State providing benchmarks for international travel. It also discusses pre-approvals, advances, international compliance configurations, and the benefits and limitations of per diem.
SAP Concur published an article explaining what an itemized receipt is—a receipt detailing each line item of goods or services from a transaction—and comparing it with regular receipts in terms of itemization, expense tracking, reporting, and auditing. The article lists common itemized expense types such as meals, hotel stays, car rentals, air travel, and office supplies, and explains when itemized receipts are required, including employee reimbursements, tax deductions, government contracting, and external audits. It also discusses the role of itemized receipts in reducing expense fraud.
SAP Concur has launched global tax management solutions to help companies keep up with rapidly evolving tax regulations. The solutions support various phases of the tax management process, from expense report creation to approval, payment, and reconciliation, and leverage AI and machine learning to maximize tax recovery. Digitized receipts and e-invoice mandates are already in place in countries such as China, Japan, and Mexico. SAP Concur's solutions currently support France, Spain, Japan, China, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand, with support for Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland coming soon.
SAP Concur published an article explaining the definition, process, and benefits of purchase requisitions. A purchase requisition is a formal internal request created before a company buys goods or services, helping increase visibility into spend before it happens. The article outlines seven fundamental steps, from creating the requisition and obtaining approvals to inventory verification, purchase order generation, and invoice payment. It notes that automating purchase requisitions can improve efficiency, save costs, reduce fraud, increase transparency, enhance accountability, and reduce duplicate orders.
SAP Concur published an article outlining the importance of strong expense reimbursement policies and six best practices. These include defining qualifying reimbursements, requiring receipts, reducing paperwork, setting submission deadlines, creating an approval workflow, and including quality and compliance audits. The article notes that clear policies protect both employees and the company, reduce the risk of noncompliant spend, and improve reimbursement efficiency.
SAP Concur published an article detailing how to create a business financial plan. A financial plan is a forward-looking projection of income and expenses that helps determine cash flow, financing needs, and timing for new initiatives. The article outlines core elements including income statement, balance sheet, personnel plan, business ratios, sales forecasts, cash flow projections, income projections, assets and liabilities, and break-even analysis, and provides four key steps to create a financial plan.
SAP Concur announced that Concur TripLink now has a new home within SAP Concur solutions, providing a centralized hub to streamline enrollment and engagement. After signing in, users see "TripLink" in the main navigation. Employees can learn about component parts such as travel partner integrations and TripIt Pro, and enable each one, including enrolling in travel partner integrations, connecting frequent traveler accounts, and activating complimentary TripIt Pro subscriptions. SAP Concur encourages administrators to communicate the update and offers an FAQ, an admin messaging guide, and an end-user getting started guide.
SAP Concur announced that Concur Cloud for Public Sector has received full Authorized status under FedRAMP for managed cloud applications and services, with a "Moderate" agency authorization enabling government customers to accelerate mission attainment at industry-leading security and availability levels. The platform is a multi-tenant, end-to-end, fully integrated travel and expense platform built on the NIST 800-53 control framework, limits access to privileged customer data to approved resources on US soil, and includes continuous monitoring by security experts. Additionally, the State of Texas Risk and Authorization Management Program office will grant an Authorization to Operate throu…
SAP Concur published an article on how HR teams can use travel, expense, and broader technology solutions to elevate employee experience. It covers automating approvals and expense reports through a centralized cloud spend-management platform, mobile receipt capture and GPS mileage tracking; using machine learning and AI to track, calculate, and report taxable employee benefits to simplify remote-work tax; and using a modern T&E system to meet flexible travel expectations while fulfilling duty of care. It cites that 76% of employees say a work-from-anywhere policy would increase job satisfaction and 91% of business travelers expect to make choices outside company policy for reasons such as…
SAP Concur released a new checklist, "5 Ways Finance Automation Can Help Your Growing Business," examining improvements growing businesses can achieve by automating travel, expense, and invoice management. It cites Analysys Mason 2022 research: 32% less time to approve expenses, 26% less budget overspending, 24% reduction in late invoice payments, and 29% less time spent by AP and finance teams to capture invoices. The checklist recommends automated solutions that track expenses automatically with near real-time updates, provide better data and visibility, guide expense policies, manage invoices, and scale with the business.
SAP Concur released an eBook, "6 Ways to Grow Your Business with Spend Management Automation," explaining how intelligent travel, expense, and invoice solutions address current challenges and prepare for growth. The six ways include maximizing automation and closing visibility gaps; tracking and responding to spending to stay ahead of cash flow; empowering flexible and on-the-go work; encouraging compliance and managing risk; making sustainability part of the process; and growing the business with spend data. It says end-to-end automation limits spending falling through process and system gaps, and AI flags problems and cuts off tax issues.
SAP Concur released an eBook, "The Very Best Productivity Workarounds for Small Business," featuring six productivity strategies from Steve Strauss, author of "The Small Business Bible" and a longtime USA Today columnist: set SMART goals, apply the 80-20 rule, adopt the Eisenhower Box, use time blocking, leverage technology, and outsource and delegate. It says small businesses using Concur Expense save 13 hours per finance or accounting employee weekly.
SAP Concur released an expense policy template and guidance, saying a formal expense policy informs employees what is reimbursable and gives management real-time budget visibility and the ability to leverage vendor discounts. It cites SAP Concur's Spend Insights report finding that companies reported spending violations rose nearly 10% year over year in the wake of the pandemic. The article offers six tips: review existing policies, analyze spending, ditch jargon, keep it fair and sensible, make it easy to find and use, and prioritize mobile. A policy should cover which employees are covered, allowed expense categories, submission and approval procedures, and compliance requirements.
SAP Concur published a guide outlining the value of artificial intelligence in expense management. The article notes that traditional manual expense management is inefficient, especially for large decentralized organizations, where finance managers cannot easily review every expense for compliance and employees spend significant time collecting receipts, filling out forms, and reconciling ledgers. AI expense management can accelerate task completion, ensure policy compliance, and provide more data for finance, HR, and travel professionals. Core tools include machine learning, mobile apps, optical character recognition, and cloud computing. Future trends include paperless expensing, blockcha…
SAP Concur published an article noting that U.S. state and local governments face pressures including tight budgets, workforce shortages, and increased scrutiny of public spending, yet many government organizations still rely on manual or outdated expense processes. Paper receipts, spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and lengthy approval chains slow operations and reduce spending visibility. The article identifies three areas where expense automation delivers immediate value: spend visibility and budget oversight, stronger compliance and audit readiness, and better employee experience. Modern expense management solutions can help agencies strengthen accuracy, transparency, and accountabilit…
SAP Concur published a video interview transcript in which Rahul Vig, Senior Director of Product Management, explains SAP's AI investment and three core principles: relevance, reliability, and responsibility. The article describes how SAP Concur uses AI to improve expense management, including ExpenseIt using machine learning to extract information from receipts and create expense reports, Verify automating the audit process, and Invoice Capture automatically capturing invoice information. Vig revealed that in the past 18 months, approximately 60 million expense reports were processed through Verify, with only 3% requiring manual auditor review. The future goal is to use generative AI to ma…
SAP Concur published an article introducing its new integration with virtual card platform Extend. According to Vantage Market Research, the global virtual card market is expected to triple by 2030. By embedding Extend's virtual card functionality into Concur Invoice as a payment option, businesses can pay invoices easily, quickly, and securely using their existing corporate credit card, with no need for a new card, contract, or settlement process. Virtual cards are temporary digital subcards of traditional credit cards with unique card numbers, limited validity periods, and set spending limits, reducing fraud risk. Businesses can automatically generate virtual cards linked to their existin…
SAP Concur published an article outlining the importance and best practices of effectively tracking business expenses. The article notes that accurate expense tracking delivers multiple benefits: stronger financial records for audits, better financing capability, improved financial transparency, more accurate financial planning, tax benefits, and fraud identification. Best practices include opening a business bank account, selecting the right accounting system, managing receipts, connecting financial institutions, and establishing performance measures. The article also lists common types of expense fraud (fake expenses, double billing, filing personal expenses, refund reimbursement, inflate…
SAP Concur published an article explaining the definition, types, and management of travel allowances. A travel allowance is compensation paid by an employer to employees to cover expenses incurred during business travel, provided either before or after travel. Common types include fixed travel allowance, daily travel allowance (per diem), travel reimbursement, and mileage allowance. The article details calculation methods covering location, days of travel, lodging, and meals. Management recommendations include developing a clear policy, considering incidentals, and analyzing data. The article also suggests that travel allowance policies should cover scope, coverage, reimbursement types, pa…
SAP Concur executives released 2024 predictions for travel, expense and invoice (TEI) management, with artificial intelligence as the connecting thread. Predictions include: virtual payments will simplify reimbursement, with AI quickly validating compliant transactions for near-immediate reimbursement; generative AI may be used for budgeting and predictive analytics; cost-cutting measures may increase tension between corporate travel policies and employee expectations; and accelerated NDC adoption, combined with reduced supplier payments to TMCs, may drive TMC consolidation.
An SAP Concur blog post explains the definition, importance and automation value of expense reconciliation. Expense reconciliation is the process accounting departments use to balance the books and ensure payments to vendors and employees are accurate, involving checking whether expenses comply with company policies, are categorized correctly and charged to the right budget lines. The article notes reconciliation helps with fraud management, error prevention and assessing financial health, and recommends automation such as e-receipts, digital invoice storage and app-based submission and approval to streamline data collection.
An SAP Concur blog post explains the definition, technology applications and recommendations for small business travel management. Travel management is the disciplined practice of using policies to track and coordinate aspects of business travel, covering policy development, vendor management, reimbursement approval, cost monitoring and reporting. The article recommends small businesses use technology platforms to reduce travel costs, simplify booking and reimbursement, access support, obtain better rates, enable 24/7 access, manage risk and generate consolidated reports.
An SAP Concur blog post notes that as new ESG disclosure rules, including those from the U.S. SEC, take shape beginning in 2024, companies face compliance pressure. An SAP Concur-commissioned Forrester survey found 60% of decision-makers identified sustainability as a critical or high priority, but only 45.7% of professionals in a Deloitte poll were confident in meeting new requirements. The article cites PwC Italia, which reduced CO2 emissions by 53% from 2019 to 2022 after standardizing its T&E process with SAP Concur solutions.
In the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Satya Mishra, Director of Product Management at Amazon Business, and Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, discuss procurement's shift from tactical to strategic. E-procurement paired with systems integration can reduce manual reconciliation, improve spend visibility and enhance the employee buying experience. For example, when an employee purchases on Amazon Business, data can flow instantly into Concur and be auto-reconciled.
An SAP Concur blog post notes that according to 2022 customer data, the volume of expense reports in December was 20% higher than the rest of the year, putting pressure on finance teams and increasing the risk of late reimbursements. The article offers three tips: plan ahead and identify process bottlenecks; clarify expense policy and set cutoff dates; and use automation to improve processing efficiency. SAP Concur's Expense Payment Manager can automate payments to employees and corporate card partners in 25 currencies.
SAP Concur's blog outlines six best practices for managing Continuing Medical Education (CME) spend in healthcare, covering fair expense policies, compliance tools, regular budget balance communications, audit plans, visibility into out-of-system bookings, and simplified expense reporting. The article notes CME is critical for healthcare providers' licensure, yet travel and expense management is complex, with about 45% of CME hotel bookings made through direct channels, challenging compliance and duty of care.
SAP Concur's blog explains how automated invoice processing uses AI, machine learning, and OCR to process invoices for accounts payable departments and update ERP systems in real time. The article notes automation delivers time savings, paperless operation, reduced human error, centralized data, and enhanced financial visibility, with invoice approval time improving by roughly 90% on average.