A SAP Concur podcast features TCG Consulting experts discussing three priorities for organizations preparing for financial disruption: spend category management, mobile adoption and new employee spend behaviors. The discussion covers gift card spend auditing, mobile-first strategies, receipt thresholds and travel policy automation.
The article says mileage reimbursement is a common travel and expense line item, and inaccurate or inefficient handling leads to overspending, employee frustration and compliance issues. SAP Concur's Concur Drive uses GPS to automatically log trips, calculate mileage and apply preset reimbursement rates. It offers three best practices: update policies, keep it accurate and make it mobile. Automated mileage tracking can save up to 21 hours per employee per year, and mobile mileage tracking tools can cut personal mileage expenses by 20%-30%.
AMI Partners surveyed over 400 SMBs and found that businesses automating expense, travel, and invoice management saw the greatest performance boost. Key trends include mobile workforce, multi-supplier invoice processing, and cost reduction pressures. Automation reduces invoice processing time and frees finance staff. 64% of businesses cite reducing operating expenses as a strategic goal.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that small businesses are actively adopting mobile business solutions due to their agility. An SMB Group report shows that 67% of SMBs agree that mobile solutions are changing how they work and collaborate, with top benefits including improved employee productivity, better access to information, and time savings. Mobility also expands the talent pool and attracts younger workers. The article cites Concur Expense and Concur Invoice as examples of mobile spend management enabling real-time tracking, approvals, and receipt capture, saving time and costs.
A SAP Concur blog post lists five reasons businesses should move past outdated invoice systems: better visibility, reduced costs, less paperwork, increased productivity, and user mobility.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.
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.