The article explores the rise of bleisure travel (business + leisure), with a market size of $692.7 billion and projected CAGR of 17.8%. 83% of workers have taken bleisure trips, and 22% would decline a business trip without extension options. Companies need policies to manage costs, compliance, and employee well-being.
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 research shows 69% of U.S. companies are not confident in reclaiming VAT from U.S. travelers going overseas. Cost containment is the leading reason for re-evaluating processes. Automation and cloud technology can simplify VAT reclaim, with a case study showing a 75% increase in reclaimable VAT.
SAP Concur published an article explaining how intelligent spend management helps organizations achieve business outcomes. The article groups employee-spend business outcomes into three pillars: controls and compliance, spend visibility and management, and employee satisfaction and workforce engagement. It recommends capturing every source and category of spend in a unified view and adopting best practices such as using mobile devices for receipt scanning, leveraging OCR and machine learning to automate invoice data capture, and integrating travel reservations with expense reporting systems.
A survey by SAP Concur and Kelton Global of 313 financial decision makers in state, city, and local government and higher education found that 59% believe their financial tools and systems are error-prone, and 68% report making decisions without full visibility into necessary information. Two-thirds admit fraud, waste, and abuse are current challenges, more than one in four say their vulnerability to fraud risk increased in the past year, and about one-third report an increase in inaccurate expense reports and invoices. About one-quarter unintentionally reported incorrect budget data due to inaccuracies.
SAP Concur published an article exploring how finance managers can help businesses identify and manage business risks beyond T&E compliance, including human error, machinery and technology lifecycles, business policies and best practices, strategic direction, and reputational risk. The article notes technology can help spot errors like duplicate invoices, and automating processes frees finance staff to analyze data and support strategic direction more effectively.
This SAP Concur blog post discusses the health of life science organizations, focusing on employee engagement, compliance management, and financial visibility. It cites a Deloitte study showing only 56% of life science employees are satisfied with their work, compared to 70% in other sectors. The article suggests using automation to reduce administrative burdens and improve engagement, emphasizes the importance of tone from the top for effective compliance programs, and recommends tools like Concur Invoice to streamline accounts payable and increase financial visibility.
The SAP Concur blog states that accounts payable plays a critical role in managing spending and preparing for change, and a strong vendor invoice policy is key to building agility. It offers seven tips for policy design, including cross-departmental collaboration, standardizing invoice submission and payment methods, reviewing drafts, emphasizing benefits, ensuring accessibility, taking questions, and seeking process improvements. The policy should cover purpose, compliance expectations, delegation of authority and approval chains, periodic review, and operational subject areas.
A SAP Concur blog post uses a fictional story to highlight the impact of expense fraud on businesses and introduces its Concur Audit service. Citing data from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the article notes that a typical organization loses up to 5% of its annual revenue to occupational fraud. It lists outlandish items employees have tried to expense (like wedding costs, spa trips, teeth whitening) and notes that even small violations (like mixing personal purchases into a meal) can add up. Concur Audit offers an unbiased audit service to check up to 100% of claims and receipts.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses the benefits of automating government invoice payments. It cites AIIM data: the cost to process one invoice is on average between $13 and $25, and processing a single paper check adds another $7.15. SAP Concur partnered with StateScoop to quantify the costs of manual AP systems. The article lists five benefits of automating invoice payments: increase productivity and employee satisfaction, get more visibility into spending, manage invoice payments from anywhere, be more efficient and generate revenue, and reduce audit and compliance costs. The report concluded that automating invoice payments can pay for itself in less than one year.
SAP Concur announced two new solution extensions delivered through its partner ecosystem: Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox and Concur Detect by Oversight. The former leverages AI and VAT/GST compliance knowledge to help organizations comply with global tax regulations and increase reclaim potential; the latter combines Oversight's spend management and risk mitigation expertise to analyze expenses before and after payment, spot suspicious spend patterns, and prioritize risk. The article cites the ACFE 2020 report stating the median loss from expense report fraud is $33,000.
SAP Concur's blog notes that non-profits can improve efficiency through cloud-based automated expense management. Prison Fellowship achieved a hard-cost ROI of 3:1 and soft-cost ROI of 4-5:1 using Concur Expense with Policy Audit. Simons Foundation gained near real-time spending visibility with Concur Expense and Concur Invoice. The article also notes that over 20% of organizational expenses are non-compliant.
A SAP Concur blog post recommends that companies review their travel and expense (T&E) program in Q4. It notes that employee spending continues to increase across more categories, more payment methods are used, and spend data is often tracked disparately. T&E expenses account for about 10% of a company's entire budget. The post offers a cheat sheet covering audits, fraud, compliance, and tweaks, and suggests that driving changes mid-year is often more challenging, so assessment should be done before the new year.
SAP Concur published a podcast conversation between former SAP Concur executives Mike Eberhard and Chris Juneau, and Jeanne Dion, discussing the impact of technology on finance and accounting. The conversation covers the evolution from GUI to SaaS, smartphones, and now AI and machine learning. They note that AI is uniquely suited for pattern identification, helping finance professionals focus on strategic tasks and address challenges like compliance and fraud detection. The conversation also mentions that during the pandemic, cases of noncompliance or potential fraud increased by over 200%, and issues such as unused tickets, gift card purchases, and excessive mileage reimbursement.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that as the U.S. elderly population grows, demand for mobile healthcare rises, increasing driving mileage for healthcare staff. Manually tracking mileage is complex and expensive, and self-reported mileage can lead to fraud and compliance risks. SAP Concur's Concur Drive solution automates distance capture, improving accuracy and reducing spending.
SAP Concur blog highlights that employee T&E fraud can severely damage healthcare organizations' brand reputation. Nearly 20% of T&E expenses fall outside policy. Healthcare workers drive 1,700 miles annually on average, claim 20% more mileage than other industries, and over-estimate mileage by 15%. 58% of respondents are unsure if their company is at risk for global compliance. 33% still spend 76+ hours monthly auditing expense reports. Automation can reduce errors by up to 66% and cut auditing time by as much as 90%.
SAP Concur's blog argues that expense processes need not trade off finance efficiency against employee experience. Mobile receipt photo submission, automated policy prompts, mobile approvals, and a unified interface can speed reimbursement, improve compliance, and reduce finance workload. Research suggests automation can reduce the review-to-reimbursement period by up to 80%.
SAP Concur notes that the pandemic shifted employee travel and spending behavior, such as moving from hotels to apartments or vacation rentals and extending business trips with personal vacation. These changes create significant gaps between organizations' travel and expense (T&E) programs and employees' real-life needs. The article recommends gathering and measuring employee sentiment data, combining it with operational data, assessing how policies affect sentiment, and using the data to improve T&E programs, which can enhance compliance, cost efficiency, and duty of care.
SAP Concur and Oversight released the "2021 Spend Insights Report" analyzing 2021 spending to inform 2022. The report shows significant rises in expense violations and exceptions: duplicate mileage submissions rose 2,127% from Q3 to Q4, missing receipt affidavits rose 306% over the year, excessive personal expenses rose nearly 22%, and excessive missing receipts rose almost 60%.
A SAP Concur blog post says that over the past two years corporate policies and processes have been scrutinized as revenue, spending, workplaces and travel shifted, and that employee experience deserves ongoing attention. It cites data that recent surveys find 25% to 40% of workers might quit within a year, while 78% told partner Accenture their employer is responsible for helping increase job satisfaction and well-being. The post describes several SAP Concur solutions: ExpenseIt for photographing and auto-categorizing receipts, Concur Request for pre-approval, Concur Detect for automated data review, Intelligent Audit using AI to find non-compliant spending, Concur Invoice for invoice auto…
A SAP Concur blog post notes that the sharing economy continues to grow, with U.S. users projected to reach 86.5 million by 2021 and revenues more than doubling to $40.2 billion by 2022, according to Juniper Research. The sharing economy makes travel more affordable and convenient but brings three risks: regulatory uncertainty, lack of government oversight, and data privacy leaks. The article recommends proactive duty of care measures, including gathering pre-travel reports, sending real-time travel alerts, establishing two-way communication, protecting employee PII, and ensuring T&E management solutions collect minimum PII and follow ISO 27001 standards. SAP Concur can consolidate travel d…
SAP Concur published an article outlining three key categories of documentation needed for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness: payroll expense documents, headcount records, and non-payroll expense support. The article advises businesses to seek help from accountants and consult the Treasury Department website. Application requirements depend on loan size and business nature, but documentation must be kept available even if not required for submission.
An SAP Concur blog post notes that the pandemic accelerated finance digital transformation and significantly shifted employee spending patterns. In 2020, SAP Concur customers saw a 58% increase in the 'Other' expense category, signaling reduced spend visibility. The article advises CPOs to address three questions: whether travel and expense data are connected, which channels employees use to spend company funds, and how to capture rogue spend outside traditional travel channels. It stresses that procurement executives should not focus solely on cost reduction when renegotiating travel supplier agreements, but must ensure key suppliers are adequately compensated for traveler health efforts.
SAP Concur blog notes that CIOs can achieve a quick win by modernizing travel and expense systems, opening the door to more complex cloud transformation in finance. 66% of senior executives believe a strong IT-finance partnership enables agility. An IDC report found roughly 80% of AP managers' time is spent on lower-level tasks. 53% of respondents manage different spending types with separate applications. An ACFE report says it takes on average 14 months to detect a fraud scheme.
SAP Concur published an article citing an IDC study of several businesses, finding that companies deploying Concur Invoice saw multiple benefits: greater visibility into business performance driving smarter decisions; 505% return on investment over five years; a five-month payback period; 99% of employees using a cloud-based system complied with company procurement policy; and productivity increased an average of 11% due to mobile enablement. IDC said automating the invoice process not only improved efficiency and productivity but also provided big-picture data visibility and increased employee satisfaction.
SAP Concur VP of Product Management A.G. Lambert discusses in an AccountingWeb article how automated T&E management can help companies save costs and improve compliance. He suggests further maximizing ROI by empowering employees with mobile, connecting business systems, and making data work harder.
The article highlights challenges faced by higher education institutions during the pandemic in invoice and expense management: 44% of finance and admin leaders struggle with invoice volume, 42% with new spending categories, and 41% with unexpected expenses. Manual processes lead to fraud risk, errors, and delays; automation is the solution.
Part two of SAP Concur's blog series discusses how to prevent employee expense fraud by reviewing T&E policies, establishing prevention and detection processes, using reporting to monitor data, and comparing control benchmarks. ACFE's Global 2020 Study on Occupational Fraud shows companies with internal policy controls have lower fraud losses and quicker detection. The article recommends regularly updating T&E policies, clarifying acceptable expenses, and setting up automated audit rules.
SAP Concur describes Concur Expense: integrating travel and expense in a single solution, employees can go from trip to expense report with one click. Smart matching combines credit card transactions, booked travel, and e-receipts; built-in audit rules instantly highlight exceptions; finance leaders get a unified view of travel and expense spend. Hotel e-receipts are automatically itemized, and the system notifies employees of incomplete entries. Employees can view, add, and submit expense reports via mobile, and managers can approve on the go. Concur Expense analytics dashboards provide spend views and travel KPIs. Tungsten Automation used reporting tools to reduce travel spend by 15% over…
The SAP Concur blog notes that admissions, athletic recruiting, and advancement staff at higher education institutions often drive to recruit students and fundraise, and manual mileage tracking leads to inaccurate data, fraud, and expense errors. It cites three benefits of mobile apps: GPS-accurate distance tracking saves money, automated tracking saves time, and it supports policy compliance. It references National Center for Education Statistics data projecting a 20% enrollment increase for college students older than 25 by 2023.
The article emphasizes combining employee sentiment data with operational data to create more effective T&E policies. By understanding the reasons behind employee behaviors, companies can adjust policies to improve compliance and satisfaction. For example, discovering issues like low meal limits or poor supplier performance and making improvements.
The article outlines six applications of AI in back-office expense management: increasing expense report reliability (only 20% of expenses go through proper auditing), reducing fraud risk (ACFE reports average annual fraud loss equals 5% of an organization's revenue with average loss per case of $1.5M), gaining control of regulatory compliance, adapting to policy changes, boosting employee experience, and recovering tax (42% of employee spend submitted for VAT/GST reimbursement does not meet reclaim requirements due to incorrect data, and global market potential for VAT reclaim is almost $75 billion).
SAP Concur and The Wall Street Journal have collaborated on a podcast exploring how machine learning and AI automate the expense report process, including filling, approving, and compliance checks. The article mentions a company that deployed SAP Concur across 23 countries, reducing expense report review time from 10 hours a day to five minutes.
SAP Concur hosted multiple sessions at SAPPHIRE NOW focusing on machine learning, AI-driven fraud detection, and travel and expense management transformation. IBM will share how SAP Leonardo Machine Learning improves T&E app user experience; Shell will present consolidating multiple global expense management systems into one integrated system serving 90,000 users; EY will show how to use T&E data to reduce cross-border tax and immigration risk. Sessions also cover AI and machine learning driving intelligence, compliance and fraud detection best practices, employee spend visibility, and end-to-end integration with SAP ERP and S/4HANA.
SAP Concur published an article citing a survey of UK finance leaders, finding 81% have blind spots in their company's travel, expense and invoice spend. A typical company spends more than 10% of its annual budget on T&E. The article lists sources of blind spots: retrospective expense claims prevent cash-flow forecasting; around half of employees prefer to book independently even when the company has an online booking tool; supplier spend is fragmented across channels; more than two-thirds of finance leaders lack confidence in employee T&E policy compliance; and 77% of UK finance leaders lack confidence their business could quickly and accurately locate business travelers in an emergency.
A SAP Concur blog post introduces a travel and expense management maturity model developed with IDC, dividing corporate spend management into five stages: legacy applications, automated point solutions, connected platform ecosystem, integrated application suites, and intelligent/predictive processes. The post notes legacy systems relying on spreadsheets and non-integrated systems risk untimely expenses, inaccurate accruals, and non-compliant spend, while the final stage uses predictive processes, machine learning-based fraud detection, and near real-time data visibility to increase business agility and resilience.
Citing the Oversight Systems 2017 Spend Analysis Report, SAP Concur says the typical organization loses 5% of annual revenue to fraud, with 89% of that being asset misappropriation including expense reimbursement schemes, and 50% due to weak internal controls. It offers six tips: robust travel and expense policies, tools that make compliance easier, catching spend anomalies before they happen, reducing mileage padding, audits, and automatic monitoring of expense claim data. SAP Concur says it connects to spending data from suppliers, credit providers and other sources, and uses Concur Intelligence for reports, dashboards and real-time alerts.
A SAP Concur blog post analyzes the importance of travel and expense (T&E) management in the financial services industry. It notes that because employees like relationship managers and financial advisors travel frequently, T&E is a major cost center after personnel costs. The highly regulated nature of the industry requires T&E systems to enhance policy compliance, prevent fraud, and meet regulatory requirements like duty of care. The article recommends cloud-based solutions to enhance data security, reduce costs, and improve employee experience.
Data privacy is a major concern, with IBM reporting 78% of consumers believe a company's ability to keep data private is very important. Machine learning requires data, but methods like limiting personal data collection, k-anonymity, and differential privacy can balance privacy and accuracy. CIOs must see privacy as a sliding scale, not an on/off switch.
A SAP Concur blog post aims to clarify common misconceptions about spend management solutions. It emphasizes that a true solution should focus on both end-user experience and the experience of finance managers, providing data analysis and compliance support. The post also distinguishes between 'connected' and 'integrated' and notes that reporting and analytics capabilities vary by provider, requiring complete data capture and professional analytical support.